A Day of Old Stuff

Had not been down to the desert for a while, so we took ride out to have lunch at Pappy and Harriets in Pioneertown, just a short side trip off the main road on the way to Joshua Tree.  This little town was built in the 1940's as a live-in movie set for Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, among others...lots of movies and TV shows used to be filmed here and it's still standing, preserved in the middle of nowhere about 5 miles north of the town of Yucca Valley. Quite a few artists and musicians live around Joshua Tree and there's also a popular recording studio nearby, so if you happen into Pappy and Harriets on the right night, you might be surprised to see some world-class band taking over the stage... many have.
Wandering around and snapping the old buildings got me in a groove for the rest of the day of enjoying all the great aging, textured stuff out here in the high desert. A little break from my usual pure landscape stuff.

Embracing the Tradition

I always try to support (and preach whenever I get a chance) keeping our great film photography tradition alive.  I was really pleased to see this well done new website promoting large-format photography pop up on my Facebook feed yesterday, and thought I would spread the word by sharing it here: Eastern Sierra Center for Photography.

They also have links to a small collection of traditional film/large-format related videos on YouTube, and I found this documentary about Edward Weston to be just so good in so many ways.. a little old fashioned in style maybe, being 1948 and all, but everything is still so dead-on true and a perfect expression of what drew me to photography more than 35 years ago now.  Some, who only got into photography when digital cameras came along, will get a lot out of this and see how visionaries like Weston and Adams took photography far beyond what had been a simple documentary/recording process into the realm of fine art.  It's only a half hour and well worth your time.  Thanks to ESC4P for digging this up and please do visit their site.

For those of you that do Facebook and are interested, check out the "Large Format Photography" group, too.

Just for fun, watch the location backgrounds and see if you can spot this formation in Death Valley that I posted a shot of several years ago.
Hope you enjoy as much as I did!

Fall: California Style

Can you tell that this scene was taken about 3000 miles from the one in my last post? Maybe if you're familiar with both areas and know your trees:)

Around here at this elevation, about the only native trees that change color much in the fall are the oaks, and they don't get really bright or varied colors, at least compared to the maples back east and aspens, which prefer a slightly higher elevation and don't occur here unless someone deliberately plants them.

This is an almost always deserted road in the forest just below my house where I like to walk in the afternoons after working.. it was especially pretty the other day after a night of heavy rain.
I could go a year and not see a single soul along here, but on this day I ran into a couple of guys in a truck who asked me if I had seen any deer..that reminded me that it's hunting season (this is national forest land) and I'd better stay on the road and not go off track through the woods for a while:)

Fall: New England Style

Pond and Woods, Colrain, Massachusetts
Around October 1, I would normally be heading out to Utah and Arizona for my fall road trip, but this year, it came to my attention that I had not been home to Massachusetts to visit my family and hometown for 11 years!   I've become so western-centric over time that I almost forget that there is some pretty beautiful scenery to be had back in the old country.. anyway, I ended up on a slight detour to New England this year.  I knew, however, that between visiting with family and old friends that I would have very little opportunity to get out alone and do any serious photo work, and that's o.k... I decided before leaving that I wasn't going to worry about it and just go with the flow and be real casual about it. 
We were a little early to catch the real, peak color, but it was still very pretty in spots and it was nice to enjoy the totally different vibes of the northeast for a week. I may or may not get in a belated trip to Utah before the snow flies (although it already did here where we live inCalifornia... 2" on October 10!).. depends on work and weather, etc. Of course, the fall colors will be all done and the national parks are all closed now anyway and who know when they will reopen the way things are going, so maybe a winter trip at the end of the year is more appropriate... we'll see.