The Wild West

FUJIFILM X-Pro2 (12mm, f/9, 1/350 sec, ISO200)

Lone Pine. A small town somewhere in the middle of nowhere. A place a passed a couple of times before I learned about its significance.

If you ever spent a vacation in the South West of the USA you most likely passed this little town. We did on our very first trip many years ago and also on later trips. We even stayed here for the night because if you come from the West this is the last town before the Death Valley.

FUJIFILM X-Pro2 (21.9mm, f/9, 1/280 sec, ISO200)
FUJIFILM X-Pro2 (24mm, f/9, 1/500 sec, ISO200)
FUJIFILM X-Pro2 (16.6mm, f/9, 1/150 sec, ISO200)

The only problem is that usually we already came all the way from Yosemite NP before we arrive here. That means that we crossed the Tioga pass, stopped in Le Vining for either late breakfast or early lunch, visited Mono Lake and stopped a couple of hundred times on the road to take pictures of the beautiful valley in between the Sierra Nevada and the Waucoba Mountains.

The road to Lone Pine is one of the most beautiful rides in the South West and that means something!

But what I want to say is that we usually arrive late (after sunset) and leave very early (before sunrise) to make sure that we enter Death Valley in the morning. Which means that we missed out this beautiful little town most of the time. And that’s a shame. Because of its beautiful location east of the Sierra Nevada the so called Alabama Hills has made it in many movies. Mainly Western from the 1920s to the 1950s but also more recent block busters. Here is the list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_shot_in_Lone_Pine

FUJIFILM X-Pro2 (10mm, f/9, 1/160 sec, ISO200)
FUJIFILM X-Pro2 (14.5mm, f/9, 1/210 sec, ISO200)
FUJIFILM X-Pro2 (19.1mm, f/9, 1/200 sec, ISO200)

The pictures I shot during a short walk before and after dinner show that the light makes the picture.  Of course the old, rusty truck outside the True Value hardware store was pure luck but the warm and soft evening light is what makes those images special. Also the very long shadows on the image with the white hot rod. I just love the light before sunset.

Technically they are nothing special. If the light is perfect and if you have some interesting foreground all you need to do is to press the shutter. Life is simple: You just have to be at the right place at the right time.

FUJIFILM X-Pro2 (55mm, f/9, 1/210 sec, ISO200)