Chevrolet Coupé
The wreck of a 1937 Chevrolet coupe against the backdrop of the abandoned town. The Sturgeon House and the D.V. Cain House can be seen in the background, while the Red Barn partially obscures the Methodist Church on Green Street. In 1932, much of the town burned down; the destroyed buildings were never rebuilt. Even the reopening of the disused gold mine did not bring a boom and Bodie gradually became a ghost town.
I noticed this motif on my first tour of the ghost town. On the first day, I made a list of subjects that I wanted to photograph over the three days in Bodie. I put the shot of the Chevrolet on the second day. I wanted to make sure I had the right feel for the tricky lighting.
Lighting some subjects is often technically challenging and requires careful planning. But the lighting also follows an intuitive plan.
That evening, I first photographed the back of the Miners Union Hall. The process was as follows: first I opened the shutter of the camera in front of the Chevrolet subject, walked a few meters over to the second camera in front of the Miners Union Hall and opened the shutter there as well. I then returned to the first camera and carefully placed the dark cloth over the lens to interrupt the exposure – but this way I had already exposed the sky. I then lit the second subject, closed the shutter and went back to the first camera. I carefully lifted the dark sheet and began to light the Chevrolet subject.
After a good hour I was finished. During this time you are always extremely focused and tense. But the lighting itself also has a very quiet and almost meditative side. When the Chevrolet motif was in the box, a real burden fell from me. I couldn’t relax for long, because now the interior shots in Bodie began, which lasted until the early morning.
When I looked at the developed negative with the magnifying glass for the first time 4 weeks later on my return to Germany, I was incredibly grateful. I had hardly ever taken my eyes off the film during the whole time.
