Calico Ghost Town 11-25-05

On the way to Zion National Park two weeks prior, I noticed the billboards near Barstow along the I-15 advertising Calico Ghost Town so I made a mental note to return soon. Several days after I got home, I looked on the website and saw that Calico would be holding their annual “Heritage Festival” during Thanksgiving weekend. If there’s a time to visit a place it’s during a special event. Sure there’s more people likely to be crawling around but the event also mean that there will be events which in turn leads to potentially interesting people / travel pictures. The typical nature photographer usually raises his nose at the mere idea of taking pictures of people but I think it’s an amateurish and foolish attitude to have. The most memorable moments of traveling include experiences or interactions with other people so why not try to capture some of it? Also if the photographer plans on marketing their work to the editorial market then they’d better overcome their phobias quick. When you think about it, people photography isn’t much different from landscape photography. The same rules to good composition apply if you choose to do so, light works the same way, and it’s all about capturing “the decisive moment.” (I hate that term but it is what it is.)



The day after Thanksgiving I headed for Calico as everyone else seemingly was headed for Best Buy. The weather in Southern California was overcast until I passed over the Cajon Pass when the murkiness gave way to clear blue skies which would last for much of the day until late afternoon when heavy wind gusts caused some nasty dust storms to scratch my contact lens-covered corneas. Sadly I decided to pack it up around 3 p.m. as I couldn’t see anymore and chose not to risk further damage to my eyes. I was confident that I had taken a few decent pictures so at least my watery eyes weren’t caused by disappointment.

It would have been nice to stick around for the sunset but warm light isn’t everything. One can shoot meaningful photos at any time of day if they have an open mind. A lot of photographers who shoot similar subjects to what I do only shoot on the edges of the day and dismiss any other light as being bad. Why is that? I’m guessing they got seduced by the postcard rack or have an addiction for graduated neutral-density filters. I use GND’s myself but like all addictions they can hold you back from realizing your fullest potential as a photographer. That is something I’m working to break free of. I don’t want be a slave to convention. What was once cutting edge is today’s cliché. Cliché’s are clichés because they’re great but to make a career out of a cliche is to be a one-trick pony. I don’t want to fall into that trap. Besides, I like dogs better than horses anyway.