HDR Photography
Can you spot the tiny figures at the top of the hill? I’m confident that tiny figures produce a sense of grand scale in images—particular desert shots, like this one, where the inhuman nature of the place can make understanding the sizes of objects difficult. Nonetheless, I find myself wondering how small the figures in an image can be before the viewer loses the ability to recognize them as human.
My favorite images are those that contrast (apparently) natural and human-populated places. Escaping all of the noise of the holidays to a hike in the desert has a certain appeal at this time of year.
A sunset Christmas Eve drive through the less-inhabited parts of Coachella Valley has to end eventually. The palm trees mark the seconds of the drive back into town.
The iconic arrays of white wind turbines at the northern end of Coachella Valley scatter whatever color of light is available—quite a blue situation as the sunset fades over the mountains.
The welded three-dimensional shadow of a four-dimensional hypercube amongst the desolate setting of Bombay Beach does not seem to fit all that well with a baby.
Today, a completely different view of the tetrahedral sculpture at Bombay Beach that I’ve showcased previously. I really find this thing fascinating; placing it in greater landscape context takes away none of its surreal presence.
I guess there are worse tautological statements to make into a sign.
Even might Jeep Life™ has its limits, as this Wrangler found at Bombay Beach. The Salton Sea is an artificial body of water in a valley that was once home to an ancient ocean, and the result includes these large flats made from the calcium carbonate skeletons of long-dead sea creatures. Though the outer surface may look like a desert—and the dry surroundings might support the assumption—this is really just a thin crust, below which is a lot of mud.
I’m guessing this kind of thing happens regularly, because the entrance ramp to the beach included multiple signs with telephone numbers of locals offering to pull people out if they get stuck—for a fee, of course.
Whether water or earth, the nonlinear and irregular forms of nature are in stark contrast with the Bombay Beach tetrahedron’s straight lines and round connectors.
Sailboats and Sutro Tower are both iconic components of the Bay Area summer, but the warm Friday afternoon implied by this image is not a part of that post-solstice set. Like many evenings, sweatshirt weather was close at hand.
Bombay Beach has all manner of contextless structures; why shouldn’t that include a disembodied front porch?
Bombay Beach is awash in two things: (1) crystallized runoff from the Salton Sea and (2) surreal sculptural juxtapositions. Both the rusty pyramid and the sand rail are metal framework structures, but in radically different applications and states of repair.
I posit that, from a certain point of view, life gets no better than hanging out on a sailboat on a Friday afternoon in the June sunshine. Not in reality, of course—there are lots of ways to enjoy life—but the version of the experience in my mind is just unbeatable.
This school bus, parked at Bombay Beach by the edge of the Salton Sea, seems to be focused on some not-school-appropriate activities.
Decaseconds 