Building Front, by Suprada on Flickr.

Building Front, Bodie, California.

Its Monday, and here is a new week of photos. I am continuing with more photos taken in the ghost town of Bodie, California. This photo here is a building facade as the morning light hits it.

Technical Details:
Exposure: 1/125 s at f / 5.6
WB: Daylight
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 44mm
Time: 6.31 am
Sunrise Time: 5.20 am

Meeting walls, by Suprada on Flickr.

Meeting Walls, Bodie.

The walls of this ramshackle, falling down house, with its amazing weathered wood, the textures, the old rusted metal roof shingles…what’s not to like..at dawn?

Technical Details

Exposure: 1/15 sec a f/5.6
ISO: 100
WB: Daylight
Focal Length: 100mm
Time: 6.03 am
Sunrise: 5.20 am
Lens: Sigma 18.0 – 125.00

Sunrise on Main St., by Suprada on Flickr.

Sunrise on Main St, Bodie.

This was a shot taken after sunrise when the morning sun rays started lighting up the building fronts on Main street. The structures in view are the Post Office and Dechambeau Hotel (The brick structure) and next to it the IOOF – Bodie ODD FELLOWS LODGE, No.279 (the taller wood structure). Th shot was taken from Bodie Creek, zooming in. It was quite magical seeing the building fronts and the old wood light up and glow!

Some more interesting information about Bodie from the State Parks booklet: “Bodie was named after Waterman S. Body (also known as William. S. Body), who discovered gold here in 1859. The change in spelling of the town’s name has often been attributed to an illiterate sign painter, but it was a deliberate change by the citizenry to ensure proper pronunciation.”

Technical Details:
Exposure: 1/350s at 4/5.6
ISO: 100
WB: daylight
Focal Length: 87mm
Time: 6:19am
Sunrise: 5.20 am

Ride to Nowhere, by Suprada on Flickr.

Full frontal mug shot, Car, Bodie.

Today’s photo of the day is the full frontal mug shot of the highly regarded and famous Car from Bodie. This venerable person, with his grumpy yet amusing persona refused to move from his cluttered resting place to help an amateur photographer get a solo shot. I must say I was quivering in my boots (metaphorically speaking), when taking this photo. His stare, cheeky jowls…all terrified me….

On a different note, thanks to Vikas, Nelcha, Sreekar, Prashanth, Jai who have been very supportive of my blog and left me comments.

Nelcha said for my previous post, “Car Husk’ : “As with a ship…I think I would have called this a hull…” j “And don’t forget to mention that this was a Gold Town of 10,000 people.More than SF at the same time…. “
I must say I am nautically challenged. In retrospect, hull does sound good. Yeah, It is amazing that Bodie had so many more people than San Francisco…Which in turn makes me wonder, what will SFO be like if and when it becomes a ghost city?

Vikas said for the same post: “Another good think I like here but cant understand is the shading of the sky .. its dark on both sides .. post-processing vignetting?”" but wonder if the grass is a bit on the blown-out side of the border?”" Hope you also tried the black matte”
I think the vignetting is due to the Hoya R72 on a wide angle. On the internet, I have seen some cases of people finding this. I did not use any other filter except the IR filter. But I must confess, I do like the vignetting effect, and it does serve to keep the eye in. About the grass blowing out, I must confess that has happened in a number of areas. I had to make an aesthetic judgment as to whether blow out the grass or darken the whole foliage…I should go try partial burning…I also did try the black matte. It looks good on single photographs on a white background, but the matte gets lost on the dark background of this site…hence I decided to stick to the white matte.

Technical Details:
Exposure: 15.0 sec at f / 4.5
Focal Length: 18mm
ISO: 100
WB: daylight
Time: 9.52 am
Sunrise Time: 5.20 am
Lens: Sigma 18.0 to 125.,00 m
Filter: Hoya R72 Infrared filter

Dilapidated, by Suprada on Flickr.

Car Husk, Bodie, CA

Looks like, this weeks theme for my photos is going to be this car. I’m so fascinated by the various aspects of it…especially, the tire fenders (I think that is the right word for it), the beautiful shapes that I had to make many pictures of this guy. And I have a few angles of this beauty which I want to share. One thing that astounds me is I cannot point to any one main thing which I find attractive about
this car, no main feature…I can name a few of them which all add up to make this a very attractive car indeed.

This was shot in Bodie, a ghost town on the north eastern edge of Yosemite National Park, close to the town of Bridgeport. I was there shooting from sunrise. The idea was to shoot from sunrise till the light got very difficult to work with, then go back for a midday nap and come back in the evening for another shoot. So before I left for the morning, 4 hrs after sunrise, I found this car and spent a good amount of time shooting him. Why do I call this car “him”? It reminds me of an adorable grandpa person!

Also, from today onwards, in the technical details section, I will add the time the photo was taken and sunset or sunrise time for the day depending, thanks to Vikas’ suggestion. I must thank all of you who bother to leave me comments. Thanks for your time and effort. I will certainly try to reply to these comments at least every second day.

Technical Details:
Exposure: 20.0 sec at f / 4.5
Focal Length: 18mm
ISO: 100
WB: Daylight
Time of shot: 9:50:46 am
Sunrise Time: 5.20am

IR Ghost Car, by Suprada on Flickr.

Husk of a car in Bodie, CA. In IR.

My version of the ubiquitous car seen in the ghost town of Bodie, CA. This does seem like a car with a lot of character. Its probably the curves. This photo was taken using a Hoya infrared filter, one of my first tries. I must confess, I absolutely love the way infrared black and white photos look. Real and surreal at the same time.

More about my trip to Bodie in subsequent posts.

Technical details:
Exposure: 15s at f/4.5
Focal Length: 18mm
ISO: 100
WB: Daylight
Lens: Sigma 18.0 to 125.0 mm
Filter: Hoya R72 IR filter