Laura Campbell Fine Art

We’re back in Owens Valley after a week in Jerome. We returned to find thick smog and haze in the valley. The first day we were back, we thought the wind was causing the haze. However, a thick brown smog has filled the valley even on calm windless days. I think it’s blowing up from Ridgecrest or Palm Springs. In all the years I’ve been visiting this area, I’ve never seen smog in the valley.

I brought back a car load of photo gear to supplement the two car loads of other gear that we already had. I’m excited about having my view camera, gold-thiourea chemicals, and a box of POP with me. I set up the view camera yesterday and taught Jim how to use it. I’m hoping to add a pinhole to the view camera in the coming weeks since the Zero45 is leaking light. We expanded our camping gear to include a larger tent, an extra cook stove, and 3 more solar showers. We now have the capacity for 20 gallons of hot water per day.

Today we ventured over to the Darwin Hills area just east of the Inyo Mountains to revisit a Joshua Tree that I’ve admired since our arrival here. The tree stands alone in the center of a round pull out. I used a yellow filter to cut through the haze and a 1 second exposure.

Heading back to Owens Valley, we took a short detour to the south side of Owens Lake to check out Dirty Socks Hot Springs. It’s called “Dirty Socks” because it smells like dirty socks, and by the way, it’s for sale. My dog Bodie had a lovely swim in the overflow pond next to the pool proper. Now he smells like dirty socks too.

Back at our campsite, the purple wildflowers are in full bloom. They are particularly elegant at sunset…

Signing off from camp in Owens Valley, CA…