Scorpion Gulch

Here's a landscape view of Scorpion Gulch located near the entrance to South Mountain Park. This is one of the few landscapes I've shot so far that I like.

It's probably not so much a landscape as it's more of a still life, but semantics is not my strong suit. I really love the interplay of textures and light here.

This old building looks like someone's home that has been abandoned for many years. There may have been a fire at one point. But it just looks like someone homesteaded here and maybe had a small business next door. There is some indication of indoor plumbing and electrical wiring. So the home is not necessarily turn of the century, but I'm guessing it was built in 1930s or so. To me it's just a neat old building worth exploring photographically. Plus, it's a good location for shooting models.

Amber at Scorpion Gulch

OK. SO I'm back in the "swing" of things (large-format shooters will get the pun).

This is Amber, an aspiring model, at Scorpion Gulch at South Mountain. I'm not sure what Scorpion Gulch is/was. It appears to be ruins of an old home. But it's a great locale for shooting. It's not great if you want privacy because it's just a few yards from the road leading to South Mountain park. So we had every low-rider and hip hop-playing, Korean-car-driving punk slowly drive or even stop--waiting for Amber to take off her clothes. Uh, not going to happen.

Anyway, I really love the overall feel of this image. Unfortunately I screwed up the post processing of the Polaroid 55 film somewhere. I immediately immersed the negative in sodium sulfite and it seemed totally clear. Even after I got home and rinsed and Photo Flowed it, it seemed clear. But when I came back after it dried, I found these two diagonal streaks. They almost look like the emulsion had merged with another emulsion, but not quite as dense.

Also, the neg is very dirty. There are a lot of tiny dust spots that I tried to Photoshop with the dust and scratches filter. This is why the overall sharpness is not great either. But all in all, I like this picture. Even the streaks are kind of ghostly and lend an ethereal quality to the shot.

Some Internet posts I found suggest the Scorpion Gulch is haunted. Maybe I've got some ghost trails here.