A bit of background first, I first read about Bodie when I was online, checking out new places to take pictures. One place kept standing out, both in travel sites and with photographers: Bodie. At one time, it had over 10,000 residents, but became a ghost town after everyone left in the late 50s. In the 60s, a group got together to preserve the town, and today, it's a State Park. Admission is $2 for adults, $1 for kids over 5, under 5 are free. Payment is strictly on the honor system, drop your $ in the box.
I asked my wife 5 or 6 days before leaving if she thought it'd be a good idea, and she said yes. Off I went online, and started reading. Saturday, come to find out, was "Photographer's Day". To the general public, the park is open from 8am to 6pm, but on Photographer's Day, you can pay $30 and come into the park a half-hour before dawn, and stay a half-hour after sunset! The ranger on the phone said that they limit the number of photographers to 50 on Photographer's Day, but in this particular case, they only had 5 or 6 people sign up. This sounded perfect!
After work on Friday, I drove home, picked up my wife and child, and we went on our way. 5 hours later, we arrived in Bridgeport, which is 20 miles from Bodie. We stayed the night, and at 4:30am, I snuck out and headed out to the ghost town.
Upon arrival, there was only one photographer other than myself! He started taking pictures straightaway, so I did the same.
The sky was a beautiful shade of gray the entire time. This made for some great light, but unfortunately, in some of the building shots here, the sky is completely washed out.
This place is a photographer's PARADISE! I spent a good 8 hours here taking pictures, and barely scratched the surface of what was here. This particular set of pictures was on Fuji Superia 100 film.
I walked the entire perimeter of the ghost town, trying to find the best angle towards things, and I think I succeeded to some extent. I will admit, however, that my best pictures were taken after this, in black and white. I also shot a roll of color slides. In all, I took roughly 100 pictures.
I suppose I could manipulate these in Photoshop to remove the gray sky. We'll see how the other pictures turn out before I do something that extreme.
Bodie is in what they call a state of "arrested decay" - that means that while they maintain the contents of the town, they only do so to a point. In 1963, when the town became a State Park, they basically said ok, we can do repairs, but only fix it to the point where it looks like it does now. So that's what they've done.
While visiting Bodie, one gets the feeling of being in the past, especially with the opportunity I had of coming early in the morning before any "tourists" arrived. By the afternoon there were at least 200 people here.
Once again, I absolutely enjoyed myself this weekend. I think it was a combination of things: the anticipation of arriving, being out there with only one other photographer (who I didn't see again until probably 9:30am), being able to look around and use the techniques learned in NYIP. It was also a learning experience, since I doubt I'll make the same mistakes with the overcast sky that I did here.
Stay tuned for Parts II & III, whenever I get the B&W and slide rolls developed.
