The Photography of Dr. Jeff Harper

In early September 2018, after camping/spectating at the World of Speed land speed event on the Bonneville Salt Flats, I drove at a 45 degree angle across the state Nevada to get to Swall Meadows, California in the Eastern Sierras.

On the road again!!!

 

The road out of Utah went through some very deserted landscape.  There were miles and miles between any sign of human activity.

 

A little human activity after the first hundred miles . . . a roadside stop up ahead on the right.

 

I suppose these geological features exist all over the  world, but they would be obscured by forests and  towns, and farms.  Out here, in this high scrubland, every little remnant of a cinder cone still stands out.

 

I absolutely love this type of landscape . . . and I don't know why . . . maybe the expression "high lonesome" explains it.  I feel pulled to just wander around these hills . . . for years.

 

An endless expanse of an endless variety of shapes and colorful vistas.

 

Here and there can be seen traces of  former mining operations in the scars on the mountains.

 

An abandoned water tower servicing an abandoned rail spur near Cherry Creek, Nevada.

 

I passed by many roads I didn't have time to explore.

 

A story for each abandoned shack out here . . . a story never to be told.

 

Used and left behind.  I'm surprised the hot rodders and rat rodders haven't scavenged these old truck cabs.

 

Hopes of ranching left behind with the decaying split beams.

 

It is good to have four wheel drive when nature calls.

 

An ancient bristle cone pine trunk.

 

A left behind moon on a clear Nevada morning.

 

A solar reflector energy farm way out in the desert.  Amazing technology . . . you could almost smell the fried birds from the road!

 

Loving my life on the road!

 

A long road to an other abandoned mountainside mine.

 

Scrub brush, dry lake, and mineral rich mountains.

 

With so few structures around, I stopped at each one . . .

 

Mineral rich hills . . . another abandoned mining operation.

 

Strange hills left behind to weather after mining.  This looks like  a tungsten vein.

 

The colors, shapes, and textures of these mined hills were simply fantastic.

 

Geology everywhere (of course).

 

Along the highway a gypsum deposit.

 

An active gypsum mine.

 

Coming up on the Boundary Range, which separates Nevada from California.

 

Some stunning flowering scenes as I began to gain in elevation into the Boundary Range.

 

Up and over a mountain pass through a sea of yellow!

 

There were a few wide spots in the road along the way  . . . here in Benton, California.

 

Fabulous textures of age.

 

After Benton (and Benton Hot Springs), the GPS took me down 120 miles of gravel road to my destination.  I was very happy about it too!

 

100 miles of this!  I took my time.

 

I drove for two hours on this gravel road and did not encounter a single other vehicle.

 

The trees became larger the more altitude I gained.

 

Up and over and up and over many steep passes . . . .

 

And on such a beautiful day . . . .

 

After two hours on Owens George Road I crested a hill to see Crowley Lake, just 15 miles from my final destination.

 

Civilization At Last!!!!!

 

The view approaching Swall Meadows; looking toward Bishop, California in a recent burn.

 

Near Swall Meadows where I would base myself for my next adventure: camping up in The Buttermilk Country.

 

In June of 2018, as a part of my bigger year-long road trip, my wife and I took a trip from Oregon to the Grand Canyon.  Along the way we stopped at whatever seemed interesting along the way.
In east-central California, off of US Highway 395, is the old ghost town of Bodie, now a popular and much visited National Monument.  It is one of the largest and most complete ghost towns in the USA (Jerome, Arizona is another).

 

We arrived a the broad site of Bodie in a light drizzle under threatening skies.

 

Our first view of Bodie was of scattered shacks and abandoned mine tailings.

 

And after parking and walking into the cluster of old weathered buildings, the layout of a town started to appear.

 

Bodie became a town in 1876 when a productive vein of gold was discovered there.

 

Even though it was mid June, the elevation of 8379 feet (2554 m) combined with the wind and mist, made the surfaces wet, revealing the colors and textures perfectly.

 

 
Bodie had a population of 7000 before the gold was all mined  . . . and was connected to the world by a small gauge rail line.

 

At it's height, Bodie had two churches, a Wells Fargo Bank, a myriad of shops and services, as well as its own hydroelectric generating station 13 miles away.

 

There were 2000 buildings in Bodie at one time.  There are nowhere near that many left today . . . but it is still an impressive sight to see.

 

I am a fan of old doors and windows . . . especially weathered old doors and windows.  I was in photographers' heaven in Bodie.

 

Several of the old general stores still had period merchandise in them.  I am not sure if the items inside were left behind or carefully placed there years ago by over-eager National Parks staff, but the interiors are a marvel.

 

A photo of a general store interior, taken through the window since visitors  could not go in. Fascinating.

 

Bodie sees nearly 200,000 tourists yearly.  The day we were there, we saw two large tour busses and four smaller vans full of tourists from France.  They loved the place too.  The building with the open door is the tourist information center, gift shop, and historical display.

 

The museum had this wonderful horse drawn hearse, as well as many other finds from the site.

 

A lovely collection of amber bottles in the museum.

 

A number of the buildings used some kind of metal siding . . . as well as metal shingles on the roofs.

 

I was fascinated by this metal siding.

 

The small metal sheets were used all around Bodie.  This house used metal for the roof, as a siding, and for various patching.

 

Upon closer inspection, I came to the conclusion that the metal strips were, in fact, opened up 'tin cans' . . . which were made from iron and steel in those days.  Because of the altitude and cold weather (303 nights a year with below freezing temperature), and deep snow (average 10 feet or more of snow per year) in the winter meant they must have had to import a lot of food . . . which at that time was packed into cans.  You can see the can ridges on some of the large metal strips.

 

A kind of early recycling.  In addition, these walls are visually very interesting in their own right.

 

One more . . . just for the artistic effect.

 

1881 was the highest production from the Bodie mines: $3.1 million US dollars.  The total value of all the gold pulled from the ground here was $34 million US dollars . . . a lot of money at that time!

 

There is still a lot of mechanical debris left over from the age of industrial mining.

 

It is interesting to try and imagine where these parts went and what their purposes might have been.

 

Your guess is as good as mine . . . .

 

There were many mine head rigs and tanks across the area.

 

Although the rail line was torn up, trucks continued to supply the town with food, supplies, and machinery.

 

There were some very nice old homes here.  Although it was designated a ghost town as early as 1915, there were still a few hardy souls who lived in Bodie up into the 1950s.

 

This view back in the day would have had many more houses in it.

 

One house had an open door . . . so I went in for a look.

 

Fantastic!

 

Although tens of thousands of visitors come to Bodie every year, it still feels like a discovery to find these old abandoned rooms.

 

I cannot tell if the furniture is original, but those layers of linoleum sure are!

 

Again, some of these old homes were lived in up to the 1950s, so I am not sure if this is one of those houses or it it dates to the end of mining around 1916.

 

"The last breakfast" table still set.  At least they didn't have to do the dishes on that last day . . .

 

Wonderful patina of age.

 

The old wood stove would have been the center of life in this very cold place.

 

Looks like a cozy room . . . at one time.

 

I spent a long time in this old house . . . soaking up the silent beauty . . . and reflecting on the human lives that were lived out here . . . and my own life.

 

Such beautiful visual compositions laying around everywhere.  Another photographers' paradise!

 

The longer we stayed, the darker the sky became . . . we started to move back to the camper at about this point.  There was much more to see in Bodie, but the rain would drive us out.

 

This steel out-house looks like it has tipped over in the past . . . I wonder how this happened?

 

Darker and darker . . .

 

My fellow tourists were heading to cover from the approaching rain.

 

This shop-front must have been beautiful back in the day.

 

This intreguing and tilting little building was beautiful from the front and side (next photo).

 

Such wonderfully defined textures and colors . . . highlighted by the fine mist that has settled on them.

 

Sweet little place . . .

 

Fine, honest door (and self-portrait!).

 

Time to go.

 

The sage brush has reclaimed most of the streets and paths.

 

I would like to come back here . . . perhaps when there is some snow on the ground . . . and better light.

 

Commemorative plaques.

 

And so, we drove off from Bodie.

 

One last look at the scattered shacks and sheds among the sage.

 

We drove back out the 20 miles to US Highway 395 and headed south toward Mono Lake.

 

We pulled over on US 395 at this amazing viewpoint high above Mono Lake.

On my drive from the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah back to my friend's house in the High Eastern Sierras, I took a 'short cut' down some very small, and often unpaved, roads.  One of the joys of this type of travel is the discovery of amazingly photogenic little wide spots in the road.  One such gem was Benton Hot Springs, just off of US Highway 6, just across the state line . . . on California State Road 120.

 

The Benton Hot Springs Hotel is the pride of the nearly dead town.  The hotel (now closed) was founded as a general store and Wells Fargo Station in 1868.

 

This lovely, and poetical plaque was placed on the old hotel in 1968.

 

A nice place to lean a chair and pop open an ice cold Nehi on a hot summer day.

 

The old hotel/store still had its old gas pump outside.

 

A lazy place lost in the dust of time.

 

But what caught my eye in the first place as I drove along State Highway 120 were the old abandoned cars just beyond the hotel.

 

Although these cars were not necessarily abandoned where they sat (they had obviously been towed to their present locations for photographic effect, one suspects), they made for a wonderful atmosphere of age and neglect . . . my favorite subject!

 

When I crisscrossed the USA with my family in the '50s and '60s, these kinds of scenes were common.  Now, not so much.

 

I spotted a few very interesting cars here, like the 1934-1937 Chrysler Airflow (middle) - the first production car that attempted aerodynamic streamlining to increase economy.

 

I had fun being an "art photographer" with all the shapes and patterns around me.

 

These scenes lend themselves to black and white photography, so I have added a number of B&W photos to the end of this blog entry.

 

There weren't very many buildings in Benton Hot Springs, but this one had nice arched windows.

 

A chopped up old VW bus.

 

There was a nice old farmhouse across the road from the hotel.

 

Very pretty little place . . . and only 30 miles to Bishop, California . . . the nearest mall.

 

Although very fascinating to look at, it is a shame to see these old farm implements rusting away in the harsh weather.  The average low temperature in January is 16(f) and the average high temperature in July is 92(f).

 

An antique tractor.

 

Another antique tractor.

People who live out in the deserted parts seem to like to drag old stuff out of the hills and old mines and display it around their houses as yard decor.  In Benton Hot Springs someone had gathered many old wagons and wagon wheels just outside of town.  These should be preserved too.

 

There was a hillside covered with these old wagons from the horse and buggy days.

 

Benton Hot Springs sits in a green valley below Boundary Peak.

 

I walked out of town and up a hill to get a view of Benton Hot Springs.

 

"If these walls could talk."  Indeed.

 

As I travel the world I often ask myself, could I live here, in this place?  I mean actually live here . . . to actually move to the place and make a life there.  I am capable and free enough to live wherever in the world I want.  I can say YES, I could live here.  I may look into it more closely.

 

I left Benton Hot Springs behind and headed into the rocky landscape along California State Highway 120 toward Swall Meadows.

September 2018

After camping up on Steens Mountain in Oregon, I drove south on Oregon Highway 205.  My destination was Winnemucca, Nevada, where I would  stage for my planned camping out on Nevada's Black Rock Desert.  I was dirty, my camper was dirty, and my clothes were dirty.  I needed a few nights in an RV park . . . and I had a hankering for Mexican food.

 

It was roughly 200 miles from my campsite in The Steens to Winnemucca through some of the most uninhabited countryside in the USA.  The major wildfires that had swept through much of the western states left behind smoke and haze that obscured the landscape . . . and in some cases made it more interesting.

 

This unforgiving high arid country left behind many abandoned homesteaders and miners' shacks, sheds, and farms buildings in the giant western landscapes.

 

If these walls could talk . . . certainly applies here.

 

I had fun stopping, getting out of the truck, taking a photo, driving on a few feet and getting out again  . . . . These scenes are so photogenic, I didn't want to miss a shot!

 

The road went on and on through the dry, smoky landscape.  Oregon Highway 205 became Nevada Highways 292 and 140 before joining US Highway 95 into Winnemucca.

 

An old abandoned farmstead.  This one looks like it wasn't abandoned all that long ago.  What was the story of this house?  Its history?

 

There were a few wide spot in the road towns along the road to Winnemucca.

 

My camper ECU was acting up . . . the engine developed a radical rich condition . . . lots of black smoke.  I diagnosed the problem as a temperature sender.  I stopped to let the engine cool down and reset the ECU.  It was an opportunity to take a walk around in the parched land.

 

It was quiet and still.  Cars would come by on the highway only every 10-15 minutes.

 

It had been dry here for a long time.  Other travellers along this highway had driven off the road into the desert too.

 

Yes, the desert is not a welcoming place.

 

Bone identification is not my academic field of study . . . sheep or cow?

 

Back out on the highway and toward distant mountains.  I thoroughly enjoy these long desert drives . . . and have missed them in my tropical, equatorial life.

 

Such lovely layered mountain ridge silhouettes in the wildfire haze.

 

I pulled over to the side of the road whenever I would see these old decaying sheds.

 

One of the joys of long desert drives is having the scenery suddenly change as you drive up and over a mountain pass.

 

Another abandoned homestead.  This old ranch house was literally 60 miles from the nearest store and gas station.

 

Such rough construction.  The summer temperatures out here are blistering . . . and the winter sees deep snow for months at a time.

 

My camper was running well now . . .

 

Dry desert just north of Winnemucca, Nevada.

 

And on I went  . . . down the highway of mirages.

 

I eventually arrived in Winnemucca (pop.7,600), bought gas, went to a self-wash car wash, found a Mexican restaurant (and had a GREAT meal), checked into the Model T Casino RV Park (I bought the t-shirt!)  I stayed there two nights while I resupplied the camper with food and water, ice, washed the clothes, cleaned out the camper (bought a small vacuum), took a shower, bought a new temperature sender for the truck, and watched a few NFL games on the big screen TV in the casino bar.  A very nice stop.

 

There was a great sunset both nights in Winnemucca.

 

The view from my RV park.

 

I would come back to this same RV park when I returned from my extended camping in the Black Rock Desert.

 

Steens Mountain (Frenchglen Hotel) to Winnemucca, Nevada.

_________________________________________________

Golconda, Nevada

US Interstate Highway 80 heading East toward the Bonneville Salt Flats.

 

While driving east I was having some trouble with my old Chevy pick-up . . . the ECU was acting up and I knew I needed to replace the temp sender and fitting.  I had a new one in the truck, but had been too lazy  to change it.  I pulled off at Golconda, Nevada and waited for the engine to cool off . . . and in the meantime I walked around this little old mining town with my camera.  It was worth the stop.

 

I pulled up under a tree in front of the old Golconda School (circa, 1888), opened the hood, and headed down the street, camera in hand.

 

Golcanda, population 216, is an old mining town with very little activity left in the mining sector.  Corrugation!  

 

One of my favorite photographic subjects is corrugation and dilapidation . . . Golconda had both.

 

There were lots of old farm implements sitting around in the brush.

 

It seemed like about half of the houses and businesses were closed, abandoned.

 

Some beautiful ensembles of junk, old cars, weathered surfaces, and light . . . 

 

A failed scooter business . . . .

 

Like a movie set . . . 

 

A closed store out on Old Texas Highway 40 heading out of town.

 

Closed, vacant, the people and stories gone.

 

I couldn't resist these marvelous shapes, surfaces, and shadows.

 

Gone from use.

 

A fire burned the rear of the old store . . . but at sometime after it had been abandoned.

WOW!  These surface textures are amazing . . . and beautiful in a strange way.

 

Sad and forlorn, still and silent . . .

 

A straw rake imbedded in a tumbleweed . . .  with white picket fence.

 

Lots of old, abandoned automobiles about . . . and a surprising number of panel trucks.

 

I'm surprised the hot rodders haven't been by and 'picked' this nice Chevy panel.  I'd love to have it . . .

 

I know these towns . . . the hot, quiet, lonely days . . . 

 

I do not fully understand why I  find great beauty in these old places . . .

 

I walked back across the mainline rails to the school and my camper.  Such a beautiful location for a town.

 

The pride of the town, the restored, and nationally listed, Golconda School.

 

Winnemucca to the Bonneville Salt Flats.