the remotest parts of the mojave desert in california have been treating me splendidly lately, helping me to discover new and unique compositions, an endless menu of things no one else has yet to capture with their camera. fresh first time visions of our world never witnessed before, and impressions that will be awfully hard for other egoistic copycats to recreate while trying to find my treadmarks and walk in my shoes...
about a month ago, i drove directly past this spot with a beautiful train on railroad tracks in a perfect orientation of east to west for early season milky way impressions...however, my focus and obsessions directed upon another remote location of sand dunes (for my previous image, "immersion")....
i was simply thinking the train with locomotives attached (rare to see this) that i espied on the tracks was discarded and would be there for quite some time to come, and that i would have plenty of time to capture the vision in my mind's eye of this train under the milky way...but, damn it, i was wrong! because two days later when i came back through this area, the train had disappeared...i deeply regretted not taking the opportunity to shoot the beautiful vision of the train under a full milkyway arch that i had in my mind's eye...
fast forward to this past weekend...while i was driving again with besos (my pup) to the same remote location in the mojave, this time with good friend and awesome fellow photographer chip morton, i was mentioning my regrets for skipping the shooting of that train i saw in the middle of nowhere. i told him that if i had to do over again, i would not hesitate and stop to take pictures of the train. i just hoped oneday i would get the opportunity again...
and low and behold, two hours later, we came across another train in almost the same spot. and again it was complete with two locomotives attached sitting on these tracks with the perfect east-to-west orientation. it was just sitting there. just waiting. its diesel engines were still running, headlight glowing. the train was just sitting there idling on these isolated tracks in the middle of the desert, waiting for its turn to go when ever and wherever it was needed...all the while posing for me, like it wanted me to take its picture under the stars...
i will never have the same regret two times, i will not let the same lost opportunity happen twice in my life...
we got my jeep 4x4 over beside the train. really up close and personal. it was nearing sunset, so i waited, and hoped that the train would not decide to take off (although i took a few contrasty backup images with the sun bright in the sky with way to many shadows just in case the train did)...i continued to wait for the sun to finally disappear for the night, never knowing when this train was going to finally depart it's station in the middle of nowhere...the sun set and i got my blue hour shots of the train that i needed and wanted, to be accompanied by the full pano of the milky way arch over top of the tracks later in the wee morning hours of this night...the train never left until after the sunrise with the beginning of tomorrow...
i got a second chance to take my impression, and here it is today, hope that you love it...
and as i was taking these pictures (22 different exposures in all, see the "about this impression" section below for more details), i had plenty of time to think about the meaning of this train in the middle of nowhere, its deeper meaning to me and why i was so enamoured with it, fascinated with it, wanting to capture it artistically with my camera, creating an outward expression of my feelings and emotions for others to see in the form of a photographic impression...
lately melancholy has been gripping me, i feel so lonely these days, getting older and older, with only my doggie besos and the ticking of the clock to keep me company...sometimes i feel i'm all aboard on a train all alone, headed no place. down the wrong way on one-way tracks into a pointless nothingness, neither here nor there...but night falls, and i step off the train in my middle of nowhere. i look up into the night sky and i feel i have arrived, i'm where i need to be, where i belong. a tear leaves a trail on my cheek...
focusing upward at night and staring at the milky way is like taking a train ride back into the depths of time. in those endless pinpoints of light are timeless sunbeams. within those stars are the words of the universe, and some of those words are mine. i am haunted by the stars...
and seriously...my god, wouldn't it be so dreamy if we could just hop on a train and journey into the stars while we are alive?
my favorite artist, vincent van gogh was obsessed with this idea, that we should not have to wait until we are dead to be able to journey to the stars...
"looking at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as i dream over the black dots representing towns and villages on a map. why, i ask myself, shouldn’t the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map? just as we take a train to get to another city, we take death to reach a star. we cannot get to a star while we are alive any more than we can take the train when we are dead. so to me it seems possible that diseases like cancer are the celestial means of locomotion. just as steamboats, buses and railways are the terrestrial means...to die quietly of old age would be to go to these places on foot" ― vincent van gogh
i think maybe being out in the middle of nowhere, under that stars is the closest i can get to visiting the stars while i'm still alive. it's my way of taking a train ride to the milky way...the stars give me solace, keep me company and make me feel at home, at peace. that's the bottom line of all importance. and probably the reason why i go out to remote locations at night so often, and take so many pictures of the stars, up all night long with my camera...
i'm always so drained the next day from staying up all night to be under the stars. but i'm at my best and brightest under the stars, truly happy. i will not leave them, they have to leave me when the daylight dawns...and then i'm left feeling so fulfilled that next day, regardless of my lethargy...
my mind floats back to comfortable inner peace. life is good, its okay to be alone, it is the path i need to follow right now, my path alone, it's mine alone...it's my journey to live, live my life before i have to crossover into the unknown and really take that celestial locomotive to the stars one day in the distant future (hopefully distant)...
"in the darkness of the night i find my path to peace as the stars flower my world with angelic beauty...it is in the light of day that i am tormented and lost, as the sunshine bedevils me, and bleaches out all of my dreams with its blinding reality" ― bodhinku, bedevilled
this next song is a classic from the mid 1990s alternative genre and is one of my favorite songs ever written....i knew i was going to use this song in my blog when i was taking the images to create this impression, and maybe someday you might be unlucky enough to hear me sing it on stage with a friend's band or at a karaoke bar, given enough liquid libations and encouragement...it's the perfect accompaniment to connect music with the meaning of my impression and blog today: "runaway train" by soul asylum ... (just click on any of the words in the blue links to listen to the musical selection)....
"call you up in the middle of the night, like a firefly without a light. you were there like a slow torch burning, i was a key that could use a little turning. so tired that i couldn't even sleep. so many secrets i couldn't keep. promised myself i wouldn't weep one more promise i couldn't keep. it seems no one can help me now, i'm in too deep. there's no way out, this time i have really led myself astray...runaway train never going back, wrong way on a one way track. seems like i should be getting somewhere, somehow i'm neither here nor there...can you help me remember how to smile? make it somehow all seem worthwhile. how on earth did i get so jaded? life's mystery seems so faded. i can go where no one else can go, i know what no one else knows. here i am just drownin' in the rain with a ticket for a runaway train. everything is cut and dry, day and night, earth and sky, but somehow i just don't believe it...runaway train never going back, wrong way on a one way track. seems like i should be getting somewhere, somehow i'm neither here nor there...bought a ticket for a runaway train, like a madman laughin' at the rain, little out of touch, little insane, just easier than dealing with the pain...runaway train never comin' back, wrong way on a one way track. seems like i should be getting somewhere, somehow I'm neither here nor there...runaway train never comin' back, runaway train tearin' up the track, runaway train burnin' in my veins. runaway, but it always seems the same" ― soul asylum, runaway train
"i really need to be illuminated daily by things that are inspiring to me, things than make me smile, giggle, and glow from my deepest depths...illuminating my inner shadows, those hidden dark parts of me, personal secrets that make me who i am, even if i am not proud of them" ― bodhinku, illuminated
and now here are a few more quotes from bodhinku from past blogs to help add to the deeper meaning of this blog today...