Desert Sunset Junk

kdog

David-Stallard

Love the shot, comp and light is superb, hate the fact that the rubbish is there in the first place.

.DAVID.

stirinthesauce

Love it!

Doug Solis

Love the color hues and clarity in this image. Oh and I like all the junk.

kdog

David-Stallard wrote: »

Love the shot, comp and light is superb, hate the fact that the rubbish is there in the first place.

.DAVID.

Thank you, David. 99.99% of the desert is pristine, and pockets of junk like this are relatively rare. As such, they're somewhat of a curio when you come across them. I'm not talking about piles of beer bottles, but signs that somebody actually tried living out there for a while. It makes you wonder what happened to them.

For example, here is somebody's camp.



The place looked abandoned, so we tried the door and went in. Inside it were all sorts of artifacts, books, personal effects and the like. A calendar on the wall showed 1994. The rodent nests inside made it clear that the place had remained vacant since then as well. We traced down the owner from a bill, and interestingly he had died just a few months prior at a different address. So why did he put all the effort into this camp and then abandon it for 16 years before he died? Anyway, I just find these mysteries to be so very interesting.

Here's his view looking out from the trailer. That's a BBQ made from an old beer keg. Pretty darn creative. Another abandoned camp can be seen about 3/4 mile away.



Now trash dumping is a different story and not tolerated by the local authorities. They will jail people for that. But desert junk and abandoned camps are kinda cool.

ThatCanonGuy

Yeah, that desert stuff is pretty cool ;~). And I absolutely love the sky in the first photo.

ThatCanonGuy

Actually, I'm interested in that photo in the original post. Lens and exposure, and did you use a tripod? How did you PP it?

kdog

stirinthesauce wrote: »

Love it!

Thanks!

Doug Solis wrote: »

Love the color hues and clarity in this image. Oh and I like all the junk.

Thanks, Doug!

ThatCanonGuy wrote: »

Yeah, that desert stuff is pretty cool ;~). And I absolutely love the sky in the first photo.

Thanks! The other two shots were just P&S shots for illustration.

ThatCanonGuy wrote: »

Actually, I'm interested in that photo in the original post. Lens and exposure, and did you use a tripod? How did you PP it?

Canon 40D, EFS 10-22 @ 20mm. ISO100, F10. Three exposures at 1/13s, .3s, and 1.3s. HDR'd and tone mapped twice in Photomatix, once for the sky, and once for the foreground, then manually blended in Photoshop.

dlplumer

Cool, Joel: two separate HDRs blended in PS

black mamba

Hey Joel,

That first shot is really appealing....and shows very good technical skills.

I've often wondered what prompts people to seek such a barren and isolated surrounding in which to live. Likewise, what prompts them to up and leave....sometimes suddenly.

I once got to speak with a guy who had done just these things. He thought escaping people and opting for the isolation was just what he needed. As time wore on, the isolation began to eat at him. The busy, busy projects he first engaged in ultimately gave way to pronounced boredom. I don't know how serious he was but he said that if he had stayed out there, he would have gone crazy.

Of those folks that he knew that had sought the same type of life-style, medical issues were the dominant reason they eventually went back to civilization.

Tom

Sexy6Chick

I think 99.99% is a bit much. The cleanup at Table Mesa this past weekend had just over 400 people turn out and filled up 3 40 yard rolloff dumspters and had an overflow pile with enough to fill a 4th.

But back to your shot, I love the colors! Where was that at??

kdog

dlplumer wrote: »

Cool, Joel: two separate HDRs blended in PS

Thanks, Dan. I didn't start out with that in mind, but that's what it took to get the scene to look like what I saw with my eye. The images straight out the camera were flat as anything. Maybe if I'd used the 5DMKII I could have done the entire scene with a single image.

kdog

black mamba wrote: »

Hey Joel,

That first shot is really appealing....and shows very good technical skills.

I've often wondered what prompts people to seek such a barren and isolated surrounding in which to live. Likewise, what prompts them to up and leave....sometimes suddenly.

I once got to speak with a guy who had done just these things. He thought escaping people and opting for the isolation was just what he needed. As time wore on, the isolation began to eat at him. The busy, busy projects he first engaged in ultimately gave way to pronounced boredom. I don't know how serious he was but he said that if he had stayed out there, he would have gone crazy.

Of those folks that he knew that had sought the same type of life-style, medical issues were the dominant reason they eventually went back to civilization.

Tom

Thanks, Tom. Interesting story about this fellow you met. Funny, you talked about "busy, busy projects". I wish I'd photographed more of his. He had done some pretty neat stuff, including an elaborate water collection system. Such a shame to see all that work go to waste. These abandoned camps are everywhere out here.

kdog

Sexy6Chick wrote: »

I think 99.99% is a bit much. The cleanup at Table Mesa this past weekend had just over 400 people turn out and filled up 3 40 yard rolloff dumspters and had an overflow pile with enough to fill a 4th.

Well, that's because ya'll are a messy bunch down there, Natalie.

But back to your shot, I love the colors! Where was that at??

This is up the mountain towards Sitgreaves Pass between Kingman and Oatman. That bus on its side is visible from Oatman Rd actually.

Thanks for your comment!

Cheers,
-joel

jamesl

What a sureal shot. You did great capturing it. Such beauty of nature contrasted with the left behinds of society. You could make a documentary out of shots like this.