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Archive 2023 · Bumper Stickers at the Mono Lake Scenic Overlook

  
 
Peter Figen
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Bumper Stickers at the Mono Lake Scenic Overlook


Coming south on US395 from Bridgeport to Lee Vining there a fabulous panoramic scenic overlook looking out over Mono Lake and the surrounding area. We stopped there a few times over the years and for some reason the guard rail there has become a magnet for all sorts of bumper stickers. When we were coming home from a gig in Reno about ten years ago we left a sticker for the band Gee was playing in at the time. We searched and it must have not withstood the weather or it got pasted over so we left the sticker that I designed for her current band Gigi and Her Atomic Hipsters, and of course had to memorialize it along with one slightly more controversial stickers.

And the funny thing is that earlier in the trip we were talking about the place where we left the bumper sticker a decade earlier and couldn't remember where it was - until we stopped there and it all came back.

Tonapah, NV used to be a weird and quirky dying silver mining town that had a funky old motel I stayed in a few times, a cool old junk store where the old VFW members sat around bullshitting, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes all day and finally some really cool fuel storage tanks on the outskirts of town. All that is gone now, replaced by bright shiny new cookie cutter gas station mini marts of the ugliest sort. So I guess the only real reason was to photograph this weird and creepy motel sign and see the wild horses on the range between Bishop and Tonapah.





Jesus Loves Assholes

  GFX100S    GF20-35mmF4 R WR lens    35mm    f/11.0    1/160s    100 ISO    0.0 EV  







Atomic Hipsters Bumper Sticker

  GFX100S    GF20-35mmF4 R WR lens    25mm    f/11.0    1/250s    100 ISO    0.0 EV  







World Famous (self proclaimed) Clown Motel, Tonapah, NV

  GFX100S    Fujifilm Fujinon GF32-64mm F4 R LM WR lens    32mm    f/11.0    1/320s    100 ISO    0.0 EV  




Sep 13, 2023 at 03:22 PM
Danpbphoto
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Bumper Stickers at the Mono Lake Scenic Overlook


Super work Peter!!!!!!
LOVE the olde references to "hipsters" and a-holes!
LOve the last one! Super tones!!!!
Dan



Sep 14, 2023 at 09:52 AM
Peter Figen
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Bumper Stickers at the Mono Lake Scenic Overlook


Danpbphoto wrote:
Super work Peter!!!!!!
LOVE the olde references to "hipsters" and a-holes!
LOve the last one! Super tones!!!!
Dan


Thanks Dan. Sometimes you just have to document the ridiculousness that you come across, or add your own little bit to it. The Atomic Hipsters, which is sorta like late 50's early 60's instrumental lounge or exotica music based around accordion, vibes and steel drum are finally (hopefully) going to get into the studio next year and get it all down on digital tape or whatever the hell it is you do these days.




Sep 14, 2023 at 10:05 AM
Danpbphoto
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Bumper Stickers at the Mono Lake Scenic Overlook


Peter Figen wrote:
Thanks Dan. Sometimes you just have to document the ridiculousness that you come across, or add your own little bit to it. The Atomic Hipsters, which is sorta like late 50's early 60's instrumental lounge or exotica music based around accordion, vibes and steel drum are finally (hopefully) going to get into the studio next year and get it all down on digital tape or whatever the hell it is you do these days.



!!!
Keep us informed Peter!
Dan



Sep 14, 2023 at 10:07 AM
Peter Figen
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Bumper Stickers at the Mono Lake Scenic Overlook


Danpbphoto wrote:
!!!
Keep us informed Peter!
Dan


I will Dan but it's too early to talk publicly about the project in its entirety.



Sep 14, 2023 at 11:00 AM
Danpbphoto
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Bumper Stickers at the Mono Lake Scenic Overlook


Peter Figen wrote:
I will Dan but it's too early to talk publicly about the project in its entirety.





Sep 14, 2023 at 03:44 PM
Charlie San
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Bumper Stickers at the Mono Lake Scenic Overlook


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





Sep 14, 2023 at 06:40 PM
Peter Figen
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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
...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.



Sep 14, 2023 at 07:06 PM
IndyFab
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Bumper Stickers at the Mono Lake Scenic Overlook


Bad Day at Black Rock originated as a short story by Howard Breslin with full-color illustrations by Robert Fawcett. Entitled "Bad Time at Honda", it was published by The American Magazine in January 1947.

The time movies were movies !!



Sep 21, 2023 at 12:05 PM
Peter Figen
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Bumper Stickers at the Mono Lake Scenic Overlook


IndyFab wrote:
Bad Day at Black Rock originated as a short story by Howard Breslin with full-color illustrations by Robert Fawcett. Entitled "Bad Time at Honda", it was published by The American Magazine in January 1947.

The time movies were movies !!


Very interesting. Bad Day is a much better title.




Sep 21, 2023 at 12:53 PM





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