Blame Leesa

Basically, it's her fault you're not seeing an image or two of scantily-clad models today.

Leesa, it seems, has managed to get me more interested in pointing my camera at things other than pretty girls. So, instead of tits-n-ass, I'll first offer you Bob, as he whiles away the day on the porch of his quaint, desert-establishment, "Cowboy Bob's Curio Corral," located in the ghost-townish hamlet of Randsburg, California.

Yesterday, Leesa and I ventured out on another one of our foto-field-trips. This time, it was my turn to decide on the destination and I wanted to go out in search of ghost towns and other ruined remains of Californians' attempts to survive and thrive in the desolate and unforgiving Mojave Desert.

It was a really fun day! Every time we thought we'd found the middle of nowhere, we soon discovered we were merely on the edge of nowhere with the elusive middle beckoning from somewhere down the road.

For most of the day, the cloud cover was fairly dense. There was even a bit of brief precipitation. We were hoping to roam from location to location under more dramatic, billowy-cloud-filled, azure, skies, but that wasn't in the cards. That aside, we still found plenty to shoot and, by the end of the day, the skies did provide more drama. Below, is a candid of Leesa as she makes her way to a better vantage point to shoot some old, collapsed, heap of someone's former dream-home. Leesa's a bit elusive as a camera-subject so, for the most part, I have to catch a pic of her on the sly.


One of the high-points of the day, at least for me, was the discovery of the old, Randsburg cemetary. Many of the graves are from the 19th Century and there's more than a few that are old -- very old -- and unmarked. The grave of one Evelyn Anne "Tonie" Seger, 1897 - 2003, was particularly interesting.

The image below is Tonie's gravesite. That's her actual bed above it, helping her to rest comfortably in peace. There's a lengthy, etched inscription, on a marble slab in the dirt, that recounts Tonie's life. And what a life it was! It even ends with a cryptic and mysterious comment regarding some secret that Tonie apparently kept and took to the grave about the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. An image of Tonie is on the marble headstone. In both Leesa's and my opinions, Tonie, in her middle years, bore an uncanny resemblance to -- what we might imagine -- a middle-aged Amelia Earhart would have looked like had she not famously disappeared. I stress the word "uncanny."


I snapped a ton of pics yesterday. I haven't closely gone through them all yet. Besides, there would be way too many to post to give you a good idea of the variety of photo-worthy locations we stumbled upon. Plus, I figure many of you might be thinking, "Very interesting, Jimmy. So let's get back to the pretty girls, shall we?" I don't want to bore the readers of this site, but please bear with me: I'm still shooting pretty girls but I'm also discovering other avenues to pursue my photographic passions and who knows where they might lead?