Nestled in California’s central Sierra Nevada mountains, at an elevation of 8,400 feet, you will find the slowly fading remnants of a genuine nineteenth century gold mining boom town.   Unique in all the world Bodie, California is a grand old west museum left in place; deserted and desolate.   Bodie is noncommercialized and kept in a condition of “arrested decay” by the State Park Service.   At its peak in the late eighteen seventies, with a population near eight thousand, Bodie personified the wild wild west.   Physically harsh and socially violent were the access fees for mining one of California’s richest gold strikes.   Disastrous fires in 1892 and 1932 left less than ten percent of the town standing.   The last resident left in 1962 when Bodie was designated a State Historic Park and a National Historic Landmark.   Photographically friendly Bodie’s weathered buildings, rustic artifacts, abandoned spaces and vanishing ghosts make for a fascinating look back in time.

   Although largely self-taught as a still photographer, Carl Zimmerman did train in the U.S. Air Force ( Vietnam era ), as a specialist in aerial reconnaissance film processing.   Within a year he was working a Top Secret mapping project handling multiple filtered light exposures on Kodak three feet square color transparency film.   His early perspective was also heavily influenced by his father’s prolific output of award winning, rendered by palette knife, oil paintings.   A visual feast for developing a critical and creative eye.

   Sometime in the summer of 1973 Zimmerman first encountered Bodie, California.   This was a camera-less yet visually very impactful meeting.   One man wandering a museum of wild west memories where poignancy was all pervasive and finding the elusive aesthetic would become the ongoing challenge.   Numerous return trips and decades of self-taught immersion later Carl Zimmerman has produced the documentary/fine art series GHOST TOWN.  For Bodie, the most comprehensive study of its kind shown to date.

   The Bodie GHOST TOWN series consists of forty-seven photographic images intended as a haunting visual link to early California gold mining history.   All field work on this project was completed between May 2010 and May 2019.  All shooting was during park hours and without special access.   All interiors, except the fire house and miner’s union hall, were photographed through nineteenth century window glass.   All images originate from natural light color transparency film capture.   And all prints are uncropped full frame atmospheres. Also note, since ownership changes were frequent in Bodie all houses and buildings are referenced by their most notable occupants, uses or businesses.

   All forty-eight images are available as individual 30 x 45 inch, or larger, gallery prints.   To view, in the intended narrative order, all copyrighted written and photographic material comprising the GHOST TOWN series, visit the Portfolio page of this website.   A portion of proceeds from all sales will go to the invaluable Bodie Foundation.

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