Mobius Arch: Alabama Hills, California

Posted on Saturday, Feb 12, 2011

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

The late, great landscape photographer, Galen Rowell lived in the Owens Valley north of the Alabama Hills. He often wrote about the special quality of light that characterized the Sierra Nevada Range. I used to dismiss this notion, attributing it to Galen’s love for the region, but the more time I spend here, the more I’ve come to believe it is true.

The Alabama Hills are famous among old movie buffs as the setting for numerous old westerns but I was here to photograph Mobius Arch, an arch that Galen brought to the attention of the photographic world years earlier. For much of the time since, there has been an effort to conceal its exact location in order to protect it. Now this is no longer the case; one can go to the local Forest Service office and pick up a map to Mobius and many of the other granite arches in the area.

Arriving at the arch before dawn, I was relieved to find that no one else was here. Being first on the scene in the morning is particularly important in the case of Mobius because there is only space for about three photographers to set up—and only one spot where Mt. Whitney is framed through the arch’s opening. I ended up having the arch to myself for my entire time here. Many are not that fortunate. Perhaps the secret is choosing a week day that is also New Year’s Eve.

[Click on a thumbnail to view the entire image.]

©2011 Timothy Linn. All Rights Reserved.

Burning Man

Posted on Thursday, Dec 2, 2010

Burning Man is an event that really defies description. It is weeklong art festival; a gathering of adventure seekers; a participatory social experiment; an exercise in survival; an ad hoc community of 50,000 that materializes out of nothing on a playa in the middle of Nevada’s Black Rock Desert each year around Labor Day. Vague enough for you? Anyone who has been there will tell you that you have to show up to really grasp it.

To be honest, I’ve never been too interested in grasping it. The occasional pictures that I’ve seen floating around always looked as though they were shot on the set of Mad Max. That’s not exactly a world I wanted to spend a week in. Then I came across these images shot by Trey Ratcliff. Yes, they look like they’re shot on the set of Mad Max but what a starkly beautiful set it is! I would spend a week in this world if I could bring a camera with me. Turns out Burning Man takes place less than 6 hours from my house. I just have to figure out a way to trick…err…convince Darla into going.

If you’d just like to know more about Burning Man, a first timer’s guide is available here. Trey Ratcliff’s original post is here. A bigger collection of images from Neil Girling can be found here.

[Click on a thumbnail to view the entire image.]