Bodie Ghost Town

By robert | January 30, 2017 |

Sierra Nevada mountains | Mono County, California

Back in 2007 (seems a million years ago,) I took a personal trip to the Sierra Nevadas simply for personal photography. I always try and take a trip a year (sometimes more) to make photographs simply for myself. Sometimes I show these images and sometimes – unfortunately – they just sit in a box or portfolio here at the house.

There were a few spots on this particular trip that I had wanted to visit for quite some time (including Mono Lake and the Alabama Hills.) However it was Bodie Ghost town that was at the top of my list. I’d been to several in Montana before (a few VERY remote along spooky, one lane roads!) but Bodie is one of the largest and best preserved. There’s tons of info on this Wikipedia page : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodie,_California that i’ll spare you here, but in a nutshell the population went from about 6,000 people to about 190 at the very end. Towns, buildings and roadside stores left behind in decay have always fascinated me. You can’t help but wonder who passed through and all the activity that occurred at one time, now gone only having left a silent shell.

One thing about Bodie that’s quite fascinating is that it’s in a state of what they call ‘arrested decay.’ That means they’ll do what they can to keep things from collapsing but won’t really repair anything. On my way there I imagined being one of a few people visiting (especially considering the long, lonely dirt road drive to GET to it!) Turns out I was one of MANY people there…who knew abandoned towns were a hot ticket?! LOL

I know i’ve posted these before on my old blog, but wanted to share them again here for you!

Fair warning on the sign going in

Bodie ghost town

some abandoned items

Bodie ghost town

Part of my idea here was one I had visited on previous projects. The concept being: what if i’d come across an old box of negatives and made prints of them? What images would I find? Some would be stained – perhaps some damaged, but all still printable. Hence my textures and ‘stain’s on these, added afterwards in Photoshop.