Capturing Spirit of Ghost Town

Travelers to Bodie, Calif.--an inhospitable outpost north of Mono Lake that was a wild and lawless mining town during the late 19th-Century’s fading gold rush--can wander through a fragile, unrestored ghost town of 170 buildings evocatively battered by history, time and decay. Only those enrolled in one of several photography workshops sanctioned by the Bodie State Historical Park, however, can do what other visitors cannot: Go inside.

On view at the Photo Art Gallery in Burbank are interior views of Bodie by two photographers: black-and-white images by Janet Schipper, who lives in Los Angeles, and Cibachrome color views by Richard Todd, who lives in Northern California.

“It’s like a window into something that isn’t otherwise accessible--even if you afford yourself the 400-mile drive to nowhere,� gallery director Eileen Webb said of the show. “As it is, there is a weathered beauty to Bodie--you always see exterior shots with great sunsets. But the interiors hold so much more of a story about what Bodie was, and about the abandonment of the community.�

The images are hardly the kind of interiors one would see in a glossy shelter magazine. The untouched furniture and objects of daily use have seen, well, livelier days.

There are ghostly views of the barbershop, the jail, the mortuary, the saloon--even the power plant (in a room next to the general store); there are dusty glimpses into the home of the local madam and that of Herbert Hoover’s brother--who was a superintendent at one of the local stamping mills that extracted gold from quartz. The walls throughout are marbleized by time and dampness, not by interior design.

There may not be actual ghosts in the pictures, but the color photographs in particular are marked by a subtle trick of local light, Webb said.

“The colors are all warm at the top of the prints and cool at the bottom--that’s just the way light is in Bodie,� Webb observed. “Because of the high altitude, it gets a blue cast. And there’s a certain patina indoors, because they never dust there.�

Over all hangs an aura of sudden, unregretful departure. “It’s an area that nobody would have lived in if they hadn’t discovered gold there,� Webb observed. “They had snowshoes for horses--that’s how rotten the weather was.�

“Interiors: Views of Bodie� through June 29 at the Photo Art Gallery, 150 S. San Fernando Blvd., Burbank. (818) 846-0673. Open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and 2 to 6 p.m. Sunday.