Peter Figen
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: On
|
 p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Bumper Stickers at the Mono Lake Scenic Overlook | |
Charlie San wrote:
Peter, love your images from that area and they make me somewhat homesick. I was stationed out there, just a few miles west of Kramer Junction (which we called Four Corners). When I first drove out to the Hawes Radio Relay site, the wind was blowing sand and tumbleweeds across the highway and it looked like an old black and white western. I was coming from an assignment in the Middle East and the Mojave was the last place on earth I wanted to be assigned. One good thing about the place was that it was 3 days on and 3 off, so I traveled often, often up US395, up to Death Valley, along the east side of the Sierra Nevada, and across to Yosemite every season. Tonapah was never much to begin with, but I heard what it had become too, and that old radio relay site didn't fare too well either. The purpose of the site was to broadcast during a nuclear was and I got out of there in time. Not much to do out there, just catch rattlesnakes and learn photography. Here's an old film image not too far from the site.
https://photos.smugmug.com/Work/Submissions/n-j3LVxR/General-submissions/i-r4ngF8m/0/fca92ba6/XL/B_032%20%20Painted%20Desert-XL.jpg
...Show more →
Charlie - Thanks for chiming in. I posted a couple of images from Bristlecone in Landscapes the week before last and I have a bunch that I'm still working on. We missed our yearly trips during the worst of Covid but I think we're back on track now.
One of my favorite films of all time had most of it shot not too far from Lone Pine in the mid 50's. Bad Day At Black Rock with Spencer Tracy and Ernie Borgnine among a stellar cast and some of the best cinematography you'll ever find. That one will take you back. Perhaps my all time favorite spot to photograph there is Gene Autry Rock in the Alabama Hills. Discovered it by accident about twenty-five years ago and have photographed it close to a dozen times in the intervening years. Never get tired of that and this time I had a front camera on the Tacoma to help see over when all you can see is sky through the windshield and all it did was flare so Gee had to get out and be eyes.
And I do love your image. It really captures the feeling of wind having been there and that sort of mood that settles over the valley.
|
!!!
