Interview with Bodie

by Jonathan Vince

Reflections of an abandoned town

Bodie spoke to me mainly through its windows, hinting at a story I only partly knew. In 1859 William Bodey discovered gold in the rolling hills of a high California plain, 8,369 feet above sea level. A town sprung up and by 1880 it boasted 10,000 people. Alongside stores and banks and churches were numerous saloons, brothels, and opium dens. Unfortunately guns, gold, and alcohol proved a lethal mixture, and some claimed that a man was killed every day in Bodie. A large fire devastated the town in 1892, and by 1932 another fire left the town deserted forever.

I visited in October, during a trip to Mono County. The town's buildings both haunted and intrigued me, and I felt drawn to capture the feelings they invoked. It wasn't until after I developed my pictures that I realized the majority of them involved windows. These windows played with light, reflecting it, transmitting it, in such a way as to make me feel connected to the past—yet glad to live in the present.