If the past few posts have been dedicated to creating cinematic vibes, I’ll dedicate these big sunset clouds and desert hillsides at the end of the road to a California cult classic: Repo Man.
Tag: Landscape
Mohonk, Year 152
Miyazaki’s Kentucky
Hayao Miyazaki’s films are notable for these beautiful landscape/establishing shots of windswept grassy hillsides beneath huge cumulus clouds. The gentle, rolling limestone hills of northern Kentucky, with some cows grazing quietly in the distance, made me feel like I was in a Miyazakiesque setting.
Main Street in the Apocalypse
“Apocalypse” may be a bit unfair to the Bohemian folks who have brought Bombay Beach back, but this spot on the shores of the Salton Sea nonetheless (particularly with the Jeep in the foreground) has a real “Mad Max” vibe.
Baby and Hypercube Shadow
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.
Dawn on Interstate 64
Good news, everyone! A new, much-lighter, yet equally capable drone (the DJI Mini 3 Pro) means aerial photography while traveling in a way that was never possible with my chunky Phantom 3.
In today’s image, northern Kentucky presents a classic American combination: old barns and farms, crossed by the monolithic expanse of the Interstate system.
Colorado Crossroads
Just as any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, I likewise suspect that any sufficiently populated crossroads is indistinguishable from a town.
Pyramid at Sea
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.
THE ONLY OTHER THING IS NOTHING
I guess there are worse tautological statements to make into a sign.
Moments Before Sunset Over Glencrest
This incredible summer sunset view over Glencrest Farm in Kentucky came at the perfect time to test out my new lens: a 70-200 f/2.8 (the “classic” sports photography lens) for my Sony a7R IV. Though I had such a lens for my Nikons years ago, updating all of my glass for the new camera has, of course, been a process.
Christmas Eve Clouds Above the San Jacinto Mountains
Fields of wind turbines in the California desert may seem like a futuristic addition, but a recent viewing of Rain Man (from 1988) reminded me that there have been wind turbines in this area for decades.
Stuck in the Salton Sea
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.
Pyramid in the Water
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.
Suburbs Outside Denver
Neal Stephenson’s “burbclaves” in Snow Crash are subdivisions-as-mini-nation-states—an intentionally silly idea in the satirical context of the novel’s libertarian dystopia. These Denver suburbs are now my internal vision of how such a burbclave would look.
Red Eyes of Wind Turbines
This array of wind turbines, silhouetted against the sunset and flashing their red warning lights, looks far more sinister in a way that contradicts its positive impact on renewable energy generation.
Decaseconds 