Cultural Mirages - Route 66 and the Mojave Desert

Jan 25-27, 2008

This year's edition of our classic photo trip once again featured Ken Rockwell as co-instructor and me as astrophotography inspirer. Weather promised to feature .... a storm of Biblical proportions. We made plans for much interior shooting. But instead, the promised storm didn't make it past the mountains and the desert remained dry. Dave and the group had an outstanding session at Tom's Welding before I arrived late Friday night. My shooting began Saturday morning at dawn, as we drove out west of town to a dairy.

Next stop was Daggett, and then the Bagdad Cafe in Newberry Springs

an abstract in dried mud

And also in Newberry Springs - Mary's place, with the outback a musuem to lost love

Our next stop, at Pisgah Crater, was blocked by a newly locked gate. Onward, to the remnants of Ludlow...

Scrawled inside the skeletal remains of a Ludlow house

Bristol Dry Lake, wet.

Desicating salt, in the image of a contorted ghost

Our familiar salt trench, filled to the brim

This old Ford...

...had some shapely front end styling