explore
spent a january morning in death valley national park touring scotty's castle with the national park service & my camcorder. also known as death valley ranch, the expansive former residence has been closed for repairs since 2015.
spent a few days in orlando for work & while florida is not high on my list of favourite states a walk around the resort grounds with my digicam one afternoon did make things seem a little better.
took my latest digicam on a drive through joshua tree national park in the late afternoon sun as storm clouds rolled in.
I’ve been having a lot of fun with the ricoh cx3’s “high contrast black & white” setting & I can’t wait to have some bright southern california spring days to play with.
I spent a weekend in my favourite national park recently, death valley, which is known for being the “hottest, driest, lowest” national park in the united states. right now though, thanks to our strange summer hurricane, pluvial lake manly (the ancient lake which once covered most of death valley) has made a reappearance at the lowest point in north america – badwater basin.
I had thought most of the water would be gone by the time of my january visit but it turns out lake manly decided to stick around a bit longer than expected. the cloud streaked blue skies & mountains reflected in the pristine surface of the ankle deep water made the whole experience feel otherworldly. like visiting the inside of a kaleidoscope.
one freezing saturday morning spent wandering along boston’s charles river esplanade.
a few weeks ago I went to boston for the weekend to check out the john singer sargent exhibition at the museum of fine arts. sargent is one of my favourite painters & I couldn’t pass up the chance to see so many of his works in one place. arriving in boston just before 7 am on a saturday morning meant I had a lot of time to wander. I layered on hiking clothes & windproof fleece in the logan airport bathroom before heading into the city to brave 27 degree temps.
it’s been quite a while since I’ve experienced “real” winter. the sharp cold air & ice gathering along the rivers edge fascinated me.
spent a little time at the poetry house in bombay beach, along the salton sea in southern california. salton sea is one of my favourite places in the whole state & the art installations throughout the town of bombay beach are otherworldly & poignant surrounded by the silent desert & lightly lapping waters.
two mondays spent driving through the west to/from utah with a 35mm point & shoot.
after 4 days of hiking on the inca trail we reached machu picchu & were greeted by perfect clouds & blue skies.
the $40 lofi camcorder remains undefeated.
something I always liked to do when I lived in brooklyn was go to coney island in the winter. this beach-town is almost totally abandoned during the colder months as the theme parks & boardwalk shops wait for summer to return before unlocking their gates & opening their doors. on my recent weekend in nyc I spent a very cold morning (28 degrees fahrenheit) walking along the boardwalk with my camcorder & making friends with the suspicious seagulls.
located on the southwestern edge of ireland’s burren region in county clare, the cliffs of moher run roughly 9 miles along the coast. at their highest they rise more than 700 feet from the atlantic ocean below.
camcorder video diary
the cliffs were formed between 313-326 million years ago as a result of a river dumping silt, sand, and clay along an ancient delta. this sediment was collected over millions of years & compacted & lithified into sedimentary strata now exposed as the cliff face. the punishing atlantic ocean waves are now eroding the cliffs, causing them to collapse under their own weight.
you may recognize the cliffs of moher from their supporting role as the “cliffs of insanity” in the 1987 epic the princess bride.
I arrived in the early afternoon to an otherworldly view of the atlantic & the infamous cliffs shrouded in sea mist & swept by gusts of cold salt air. the cattle and sheep of the surrounding countryside didn’t seem to notice the bluster, & continued their lunchtime grazing without incident.
the cliffs now see over 1.5 million visitors per year.
off route 66 outside of victorville you’ll find an incredible art installation called elmer’s bottle tree ranch. elmer long built this unique forest using recycled & found materials, constructing trees out of everything from rebar & glass to old typewriters & even a missile. one of my favourite things about the desert are these types of places, the spots where someone’s creativity shows up in unexpected ways. wandering through the trees under the bright blue spring desert sky was a perfect way to spend a route 66 pit stop.
elmer passed away in 2019, so the ranch is no longer expanding, but the existing structures are well worth a visit.
the ranch is open daily sunrise to sunset, it’s free to enter but donations are gladly accepted.
shot on a vintage lubitel 2 with kodak porta 400
driving home from a day hike I noticed some abandoned buildings off the side of highway 14 in santa clarita. after stopping for some lunch I decided to backtrack & look for a way to access this area. as luck would have it, it was part of an open space off sierra highway. it seemed a perfect place to test out black & white film in my lubitel 2 medium format camera.
a morning walking amongst the rocks & the high winds at red rock canyon state park, ricardo campground.
big morongo canyon preserve is one of the 10 largest cottonwood & willow riparian habitats in california. managed by the bureau of land management, the reserve is a 31,000 acres. it is located in the transition zone between the mojave desert & the colorado desert.
spent some time yesterday lost in the mojave in red rock canyon state park. things could have gone very badly, but I had adequate supplies & the skills to navigate my way out & back to the highway. but it turned my 5ish mile morning hike turned into a 10+ mile trek.
I love the desert & a big part of that is the way it can be both dangerous & beautiful, as well as its unpredictability. the desert can be a hostile place but it’s also thriving & full of life. I still love the desert, but I’ll take a break from 10 mile hikes for a couple of weeks at least!
Perpetual politician Job Harriman lost his 1911 race for mayor of Los Angeles & turned to Antelope Valley to put his socialist principles into practice.
Harriman, along with a handful of other socialist peers, purchased some 9000 acres that had previously belonged to a temperance colony just 45 miles north of Los Angeles in the high desert. The group formed a corporation wherein each had an equal share & set about financing a new socialist colony to show the capitalist outside world what was possible. By 1914 the Llano del Rio company was born.
Membership of the colony was advertised in several nationwide socialist newspapers & required the purchase of 2000 shares in the company at $1 each. Applicants required references & an interview before they were accepted. They needed to be industrious, sober, & caucasian: Llano del Rio was whites only. The company had this to say about their segregation: “the rejection of these applications are not due to race prejudice but because it is not deemed expedient to mix the races in these communities.”
Community members were drawn to the colony on the promise of good wages, vacation days, & the allowance of personal property. These enticements were met only partially & the promised wages of $4 a day never materialized. Despite its goals, Llano was not utopia.
The community’s political stability was threatened by internal power struggles. Governed by a board of directors, Llano’s stockholders & residents (known as the general assembly) began to resent the consolidation of power at the top. Direct democracy also proved to be a logistical issue. Long discussions were held on every aspect of colony life, include when to harvest crops. An inability to reach consensus on a harvest timeline led to some crops rotting in their fields.
Water also proved to be an issue. Though the company had purchased water rights when they acquired the land, they needed to apply to the state for permits to build a dam for irrigation. The California commissioner of corporations, adamantly against socialism, denied the permit request. Neighbors also began to sue the company for water access, most were spurred to action by their dislike of socialist principles.
By late 1917 Llano del Rio was collapsing. Drowning in debt & with more legal troubles on the horizon, the company sought a new location in Louisiana. A handful of colony members made the cross-country move. By 1918 California’s Llano del Rio company had declared bankruptcy. Ruins, directly off the west bound side of route 138, are all that remain of this vision of a socialist future.
fun facts:
red rock canyon state park is one of the darkest skies within a 2 hour drive of los angeles, making it an excellent place for amateur astronomy.
the tall thin spires of rock which rise from the desert badlands are called “hoodoos”.
the center of the park is an alluvial plain, caused by the depositing of sediment over millions of years by rivers flowing through the area from higher elevations.
valleys throughout the area were caused by simultaneous or concurrent uplift (due to fault-line activity) & erosion.
several films have been shot here, including many westerns & blockbusters like jurassic park.
“last night I walked into the hills & kept climbing. came upon a hiking trail between the million dollar houses & wandered through to lake hollywood park. looped around to walk along the reservoir as the sun crept lower & lower. came back to the paved streets & meandered through the narrow roads in the hills until I ended up back at home in the early twilight of a hot winter day.”
