"Shooting in Fire", Amador County 10/15/04

For two months I’d been anticipating shooting Fall foliage but I wasn’t quite sure where I would get my shots. Last year I’d found nice colors in Marin County so I called the San Geronimo Valley Cultural Center in September to inquire about Fall foliage. The leaves hadn’t turned colors yet, so the lady suggested I try Nevada City, which is up in the Sierra foothills.

I’d been to Nevada City before, but wasn’t aware that the Gold Country was a fall color hotspot rivaling New England. So I called the Nevada City Chamber of Commerce weekly over the course of a month and a half about local conditions. Each time the lady told me that the maples hadn’t turned yet because the temperatures were still too high.

At the same time, my friend Marc kept talking about wanting to make a trip to the Eastern Sierra for a photo workshop. I didn’t have time in my schedule nor the money to make such a trip so I told him about Nevada City. He mentioned that he was planning on spending a weekend at his in-laws cabin at Amador Station to get his mind off his job search struggles. We made plans to carpool to Nevada City then over to the cabin, but by the end of the week I still hadn’t received good word about the foliage yet so we just decided to go to the cabin instead and spend the weekend on Highway 88 photographing foliage at Hope Valley.

I drove to his place early in the morning then we took his car out to the cabin. An hour and a half into drive, we discovered that there was a huge fire somewhere. We decided to press on not knowing the story behind it all the while driving through increasingly thick smoke. It was so thick that the sun was crimson red despite being high in the sky. It would remain that way for the rest of the day.



Though probably unhealthy, the smoky conditions made for incredible light to photograph in. It was as if a golden reflector and super-warming filter was illuminating everything in diffused lighting.

We finally arrived at the cabin. Marc went to turn on the water and power, while I was in the back taking advantage of the lighting to shoot the forest. Normally, I’d volunteer to help but the light was too good to pass up. After dropping our supplies off, we decided to head off to Hope Valley. Luck would have it that the road was closed five miles beyond the cabin. The fire was located near the Bear River. In addition to that fire, there was a fire going on just north at Kyburz which shut down I-50 which is the main road South Lake Tahoe. How did we find out? At a newspaper rack at the former gold mining town, Volcano.

We went to Volcano disappointed initially because the fire cut our trip short. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I had never been there, so Marc wanted to show me the town. We got there and found foliage turning colors everywhere. Leaves draped on the “downtown” brick buildings were red, and yellow was decorating the trees throughout the residential streets. All while the yellow haze was around us. If the leaves weren’t already colorful enough, the golden diffused lighting put the colors over the top. I’m sure anybody who sees my photos from the trip would accuse me of Photoshopping my colors to an extreme degree, but I assure you I actually had to desaturate the images slightly. The light was that crazy.



We spent about an hour and half wandering the streets enjoying the spectacle. The few townsfolk outside must have thought we were insane. One lady in the post office was standing outside while we walked past and was wondering why we were shooting in such bad conditions. Marc replied, “It’s a perfect day for photography.” That was a bit of a stretch but we did have unique shooting conditions that day for sure. The lady was dumbfounded and went back to her business.

After enjoying a great, fire-roasted burger at a local market/cafe, we went on to pick up our stuff at the cabin not knowing if it would still be there if we had come back later. Afterwards we drove on the backroads to Sutter Creek. The scenery was great. I’d love to come back in healthier conditions in the future and explore the area more by foot.

Sutter Creek is supposedly the most beautiful town in Gold Country. I’m not sure I agree with that, as I thought Columbia and Nevada City were just as nice if not prettier. We saw nice foliage there but nothing as photogenic as Volcano. So we headed to Jackson. We walked through Main Street and stumbled upon the Amador County Museum because I saw some nice foliage right next to it. We went inside and browsed the museum. Very nice collection of artifacts and history dating to the Gold Rush era. The elderly woman at the front was very helpful as I inquired about my Chinese heritage in the region. She scoured the archives she had there and presented me with some facts and names. She also gave me the card of the Amador County Archivist. I bought a little book entitled “The Chinese in Northern California” by Barbara Pricer. It turned out to be packed with more useful information than Ronald Takaki’s 800-page “Strangers from a Different Shore.”

After thanking the woman and browsing the museum, we headed back towards home since it was already late afternoon by then. We went home on a different route and the air was clear as we approached Livermore.