American Road Trip 1979 on Kodachrome

Timmyjoe said:
Hi Lynn, love this series of pics of Wyoming. One note, there really isn't a US Hwy 15 in that area. US Hwy 14 goes thru Cody, and US Hwy 16 is also in that area of Wyoming, but as far as I know, and I've traveled thru there a lot, there isn't a US Hwy 15 there.

Best,
-Tim
Click to expand...
Yeah that road from Cody to Yellowstone (14/16/20) is such a beautiful and dramatic drive. I'd go back to Wyoming just for that.
 
Beautiful winter senes, Lynn.

Odd, I think, to see that much snow on the ground, and water iced over, in June, even in Wyoming. As I've already written, 1982 was an unusual year for winter cold, and it seems to have been the same almost everywhere in the northernmost parts of America.

I could feel the intense cold while looking at them. My last winter in North America was in 1982, and I hope to never again have to relive that intense cold - but your images are superb.

A.Alfano, it seems eastern Canada is undergoing a winter of intense snow falls this year. So the cold cold winters are not yet a set climate thing of the past. And I for one am happy to be living in Australia and not back in New Brunswick...
 
I agree that the landscape at post 568 is special. I continue to marvel at your early talent. As someone posted a few pages back, have we seen a more evocative mount Rushmore? I know from a trip to Italy in my mid-20s one’s photography eye is dragged up to a new level in such a stimulating period in a new country. But I too was taking Kodachromes and had them posted home, so saw nothing of them till my return. I alternated, in the one camera I had, with Ilford FP4 and had that developed and printed in Italy. Did I need to see the results to benefit from what I’d seen? Almost not. Indeed, in my recollection of some shots I almost did not need to take them at all in order to learn from them. I saw them before raising the camera to my eye. I had a trip to Europe two years earlier, aged 23, which I have long almost discounted as a learning phase, but some of those photographs were also better than anything I’d done earlier.
 
#USA24-32 Rocky Mountains, eastern access to Yellowstone NP, Wyoming, 01 June 1979

U27021.1705112177.0.jpg
 
Richard G said:
I agree that the landscape at post 568 is special. I continue to marvel at your early talent. As someone posted a few pages back, have we seen a more evocative mount Rushmore? I know from a trip to Italy in my mid-20s one’s photography eye is dragged up to a new level in such a stimulating period in a new country. But I too was taking Kodachromes and had them posted home, so saw nothing of them till my return. I alternated, in the one camera I had, with Ilford FP4 and had that developed and printed in Italy. Did I need to see the results to benefit from what I’d seen? Almost not. Indeed, in my recollection of some shots I almost did not need to take them at all in order to learn from them. I saw them before raising the camera to my eye. I had a trip to Europe two years earlier, aged 23, which I have long almost discounted as a learning phase, but some of those photographs were also better than anything I’d done earlier.
Click to expand...

Before I start one of my essays - a great sequence on Yellowstone, Lynn. I've not been there, but your images now make me want to see it while I still can.

I'm ever amazed at how much ice and snow there was in June that year, untypical for late spring and early summer in North America.

One of my basic problems with photography when I travel is, when I first visit a new place I go into auto program and take all the usual tourist snaps. Even when I've not bothered to check out the postcards I subconsciously replicate them.

I then have to plan (if the site is worth the effort) a second visit to let that odd part of my brain that works out how I make my images take over, and only then do I do my most meaningful photos.

Hence the thousands (if not tens of thousands) of Lovely Landscapes in my archives. All sadly gathering dust. Now and then I look at them and recall those many small moments when II was photographing them. I then return them to their nests (Kodak yellow boxes) to marinate in their chemistry for the next decade or longer. As maybe we all do. Or do we?

So maybe 25% of my photography is more meaningful to me than the usual First Impression images I so easily make.

Back in the days when I took stock for architects and publishers, I had an entirely different approach. A 'shoot' then involved a lot of preparation to research my subjects (buildings) and figuring out when the light would be best. I had spirit levels to keep those damn verticals damn well vertical and a sturdy Linhof tripod for the best resolution in my slides. That tripod weighed like it was made of cast iron (which maybe it was, being after all German) and took up too much valuable space in my baggage, but it came with me everywhere. In my film era I used Kodachrome or as a second choice Ektachrome. In 2009 I went over to digital and after a not entirely satisfying time with a Canon (a prosumer 450D so maybe not an ideal choice) I bit the bullet and invested into Nikons which I still use,.

On one time only trips, I try to "program" my brain to kick my creative instincts into gear and do the best possible work in what time is available to me. Fortunately, I'm what you could call a happy wanderer in life, in that I enjoy taking my time and traveling slowly and if I can returning to places I've been to before to have a second look-see and trying new visual approaches.

Lynn did truly wonderful work on his fast-track across the USA back then. Far better than I would have done, and in fact did for much of my travel over the same territory in that year, 1979. Fortunately, I had my own car and I was easily able to back-track to places I wanted to see and photograph again.

I will admit, sort of grudgingly, that when looking at Lynn's posted images makes me rather envious (in an admiring way) of his ability to record so much in such a short time.
 
Last edited:
DownUnder said:
Hence the thousands (if not tens of thousands) of Lovely Landscapes in my archives. All sadly gathering dust. Now and then I look at them and recall those many small moments when II was photographing them. I then return them to their nests (Kodak yellow boxes) to marinate in their chemistry for the next decade or longer. As maybe we all do. Or do we?

So maybe 25% of my photography is more meaningful to me than the usual First Impression images I so easily make.
Click to expand...
We've probably discussed this before, but I hope you have/will spend some time scanning your old work and backing everything up digitally. They will be so much easier to find, and perhaps post in a series not unlike this awesome one by @lynnb . And when you scan and catalogue them, you can write your remembrances of those times. One item on my list is to scan and back up all our family photos from the pre digital days.

As an aside about the importance of backup - I woefully neglected backup for a few years, and have lost access to images I shot during 2018, 2019 and 2020 due to a drive failure. I still have all the raws on a separate drive, but the videos are currently not accessible. I'm still so annoyed with myself that I didn't back things up. Normally I would duplicate files to another drive, but those years were pretty hectic and it just fell by the wayside. I hesitate to take the drive to a recovery specialist as it may confirm that the files are truly lost. So everyone reading this, back up your files!
 
Timmyjoe said:
Hi Lynn, love this series of pics of Wyoming. One note, there really isn't a US Hwy 15 in that area. US Hwy 14 goes thru Cody, and US Hwy 16 is also in that area of Wyoming, but as far as I know, and I've traveled thru there a lot, there isn't a US Hwy 15 there.

Best,
-Tim
Click to expand...
thanks Tim. I've been trying to work out the roads from my diary, Google maps and an old Rand McNally Road Atlas.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top