Every couple of days, I get an email from the Digital Photography School that has links to photography tips. I often don’t completely agree with the tips, but what I do agree with is the overriding principal of mindful photography. While we might not always agree on how to accomplish something, we always agree that it starts with knowing what we want to accomplish,. Recently, in an article on Street Portraits, I read Before approaching a person to ask him or her if you can take a photo, have your settings spot on. When they say yes, lift your arms and snap snap snap, say thank you, and walk away. Easy.

I have learned to take a different approach. Years ago, I signed up for a class in Portrait Photography at  the Omega Institute. The course was cheap, but getting there was  – with airfare to New York and then driving to Rhinebeck  – too dear and I never got to the class. But the sub line, A portrait is an artifact of a relationship., has transformed my travel photography.

Ever since, I have slowed down. When I see an interesting local, rather than try to grab a shot or shoot as fast as possible, I stop to ask. I try to to banter back and forth a little bit, even if it is only with sign language. I establish a mini relationship. Counter intuitively, when I used to be as quick as possible, it was often an intrusion, I was obviously trying to steel a photo; by having a relationship, even if only for five minutes, I honor the person. This is especially true when traveling in countries where people normally don’t like their picture being taken.

I have gone from a fifty tries and three successes – using the term success very loosely –  to ten tries and ten successes. I know that the woman above is named Maria and she comes from Nebaj, Guatemala, that she was raised in an orphanage and her sister orphan is also named Maria. I know that they find humor in calling themselves sisters and both having the same name.

Here are several samples:

Bodie is billed as a ghost town and it sort of is and sort of isn’t.

As the remnant of a small city of up to 7,000 people, it is a Ghost Town. Because it is in one of the remotest parts of California, when it died, it wasn’t looted too badly, making it an interesting remnant. As an aside, there are a lot of remote parts of California, more than most people think. Even on the populous coast – right on the coast, right on the water –  there are remote spots, empty beaches. In the middle of the Coast Range, there is the Corrizo Plain; empty most of the time. Most of the Highway 395 corridor – except for Mammoth and Bishop – is pretty remote. End aside. Bodie is also high – over 8,000 feet – and dry – east of the Sierras, so it is preserved by the elements.

Even though they are Park Rangers, people do live in Bodie and it get up to 200,000 visitors a year, so it is hard to think of Bodie as a real Ghost Town.

I think of Bodie as being in a state of arrested decay. If left alone it will turn to mulch, which raises the question of How much should it be allowed to decay? The answer seems to be, with some exceptions of plants growing, none. People come to see it as it is and don’t want to see it different.

If it were restored to its former glory, it would be a Disneyland, requiring  a giftshop and – maybe – a couple of stagecoach rides, if it continues to decay and turn into mulch, it would lose its allure. It would become as empty as Tunnel in the Seven Trough Range.

We like our ruins as partial ruins. More accurately, we like things as they are, even if they are partial ruins; we don’t like change. As a culture, we want to hold on to what is and are very leery of letting go, even for what might be. In almost everything, not just Bodie, the alternative to what is, does not sound as good. Almost all over the world, we support what is. We support the power structure; we can not see any other alternative that is as attractive.

But, meanwhile, back in Bodie, this level of decay is very photogenic.