Fort Tejon is conveniently located along Interstate 5, the main travel artery connecting Los Angeles to Northern California and the Central Valley. Its location is too convenient for its own good. I have flown past the Fort countless times, on my way to and from destinations in the south, always noting that the location would make it a perfect candidate to visit some other time.

On a recent trip south, I decided that it was time to follow in the footsteps of the Indians and scout out the Fort the white men built to suppress them and to protect settlers and fortune seekers.

I discovered a snake infested, arid highland paradise that suffers greatly from the reduction in State Park funding, but can still provide a pleasant diversion from hours of traveling along dull I-5. If you find yourself in one of the notorious traffic jams, or if you are about to hit Santa Clarita arriving from the north, you could easily spend a little time at the Fort, waiting for traffic to die down.

How to get there

Fort Tejon is located in the scenic Grapevine Canyon near Tejon Pass on I-5. When you travel on I-5 between Bakersfield and Santa Clarita, you will clearly see the brown signs announcing the exit. The parking lot is next to the interstate highway.

GPS position

• 34°52’27.03″N 118°53’38.51″W

How to photograph Fort Tejon SHP

Officer's Quarters

Fort Tejon hosts a large variety of special events, re-enactments, Frontier Days, and other shows. You should try to align your visit with these events. The Fort Tejon Historical Association (link in Resource section below) keeps a complete list of events.

These events breathe excitement into the dull collection of houses with a giant flag and make it worthwhile to come here. The Quartermaster’s shop may be open to demonstrations and re-enactors in authentic costumes will give you a sense of early life in the fort.

If you visit on a regular day, as I did, you will wonder why you bothered to stop, much less pay an entrance fee to see two old houses on a dusty dry field. Most of the other buildings are only foundations and the only buildings I could enter were the Barracks, Officers Quarters and the Jail shed.

Revolvers

The Barracks contain an exhibit of artifacts of 19^th century military life. I photographed the revolvers in a showcase. I made myself as big as possible, to prevent glare from the windows and the white walls in the background. Then I used high ISO and did not use flash to avoid glare on the glass.

Using the two cannons as my foreground and the Officer’s Quarters and mountains in the back, I could produce a couple of decent photographs. While standing underneath the flag, I waited for the wind to pick up. When it finally did, it blew the flag in front of the sun. I quickly leapt into position for the photograph at the beginning of the article. Bouncing around on the dry grass and looking up, made me nervous about the rattlers.

Vista del Lago

Nearby Pyramid Lake is a paradise for recreational boating and the Vista del Lago Visitor center offers good views of the lake. Both are located south of Fort Tejon, each with a separate exit from I-5.

The Visitor Center includes a water museum, with countless interesting facts about water and water management in California. The back porch of the museum provides the best viewpoint of the lake below.

Warning

We visited Fort Tejon on a hot day and immediately noticed the Rattlesnake warning signs posted everywhere. Sure enough, we heard a few of them shake their rear ends at us from a bush and wood stack and we saw a young snake.

Consequently, I tiptoed through the grass in my sandals, on the way to get a better angle on the flag pictures with my eyes fixed to the ground.

Naturally, the wise thing to do is to stay out of harm’s way, which most passionate photographers will find extremely difficult.

Best Time of the Day and Best Season

Spring is the best season to visit Fort Tejon and Pyramid Lake. You will find California Poppies and other wildflowers in the area that will make a stop much more interesting.

During the winter, heavy snowfall sometimes forces the closure of the pass.

Time required

Unless you come for a special event, you can see the Fort in 30 minutes to one hour.

Equipment

• Zoom Lens
• Image Stabilized Lens for indoor shots
• Polarizing Filter
• Picnic

Fees

The park charges a $5 entrance fee per adult while children enter free.

Special events cost $7 and $3 respectively.

Close Locations

• Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve
• Sepse Condor Sanctuary – Los Padres Mountains
• Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
• Calico Ghost Town
• Getty Center
• Red Rock Canyon State Park
• Kramer Junction
• Silver City Ghost Town

Useful Resources

• Official Park Website
• Fort Tejon Historical Association

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Randsburg is an unexpected surprise that will spice up a long day of travel in the desert region. You can find food, ice cream, and shade and most importantly, you can take good photographs while giving your fellow troopers the rest they crave.

Randsburg is hot and dusty like every other western town in this region. The nearby mine and the old but maintained buildings give this city the authenticity that other overhyped places lack so desperately.

If you ever happen to travel on Highway 395 between Ridgecrest and Kramer Junction, you should take a short detour to visit this uniquely fascinating city.

How to get there

From the west (Bakersfield), take Highway 58 east and Highway 14 north in Mojave. Take Redrock Randsburg Road just south of Red Rock Canyon State Park and follow the road for about 21 miles into Randsburg.

From the east (Barstow), take Highway 58 to Kramer Junction. Turn right (north) onto Highway 395. Turn left onto Redrock Randsburg Road after 28.6 miles and follow it into the city.

GPS position

• 35°22’5.11″N 117°39’22.23″W

How to photograph Randsburg

Randsburg Barber

You can find superb subjects everywhere in Randsburg. Each area has its own appeal, including a large collection of antiques (basically trash) scattered around everywhere. The difficulty will not be to identify worthy subjects but rather making order from chaos and bringing some sense into the cluttered scenes.

If you start your tour on Butte Avenue, close to the main Highway (Redrock Randsburg Rd), you will have a good chance to ease yourself into the mood and feel your way forward from here. I consider this the main area of interest, where you will find the colorful buildings of this article, an old gas pump that looks like it belongs on a postcard from the 1950ies, and the ice cream and restaurant places.

Start by taking some distance shot of the old porches and typical western looking buildings. Line up some hot-shots and show them how fast you can draw your camera. Make them feel the power of your shutter and blast their hats off with your face detection. It is easy to get into the mood of Billy the Kid (or Patt Garrett if that suits you better).

Porch

Soaking up the atmosphere of any place will help you create better photographs. It is easy to step back in time for a while and come out of this frame of mind guns blazing – I mean cameras clicking.

After taking shots at (of) the colorful storefronts walk around and look for more interesting angles. I used my wide-angle lens to give more depth to the porch and use converging lines leading into the distance.

Sweep your viewfinder for distractions. Sometimes we can avoid them by changing our position only slightly. I kept a couple of dirt bikes out of the picture above by shifting my position about a foot. At a place like Randsburg, that sees many tourists and is cluttered all by itself, this becomes a very important skill. Take many pictures and shift your position between each shot to maximize your potential.

Old Truck

Getting low also can enhance the perspective. I took the photograph of the car crouching down and by using a wide-angle lens I enhanced its relative importance in the frame and diminished the background intrusion.

You will find numerous old cars, farming equipment, and fascinating storefronts scattered throughout the city. The mine in the hills may also warrant the effort to check it out, but I feel that the city itself offers better opportunities, especially if you do not want to spend too much time here.

Best Time of the Day and Best Season

Randsburg is not your typical sunset / sunrise spot. You will most likely visit this town on your way from somewhere to somewhere. The strong shadows during the day can work to your advantage though, making Randsburg a good location to fill the day.

Avoid the summer which is very hot here.

Avoid Memorial Day and Labor Day when ATV enthusiasts dust and stink up the city with their vehicles in search for a water hole.

Time required

One to two hours is sufficient at this location.

Equipment

• CP filter
• Wide-angle lens
• Zoom lens
• Water
• Polarizing sunglasses

Fees

There is no entrance fee.

Close Locations

• Trona Pinnacles
• Ballarat Ghost Town
• Red Rock Canyon State Park
• Silver City Ghost Town
• Fossil Falls
• Darwin
• Darwin Falls
• Harrisburg Ghost Town
• Skidoo Ghost Town
• Calico Ghost Town
• Kelso Dunes

Useful Resources

• Official Website

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When a slightly eccentric couple started collecting historic buildings from several counties and put them together into an artificial city within a city, they had no idea that their work would become Bodfish’s number one attraction.

Bodfish?

Bodfish is a small unassuming city near Lake Isabella, at the southern corner of the Sierra Nevada.

Silver City is an arbitrary compilation of buildings from old mining cities, lovingly put together to a new city. Main Street is full of attractive details, antiques, and capably arranged displays of relics, gathered from numerous locations. Some displays, like the inside of the saloon, are excessive but if you pay attention to what you frame, you can create compelling photographs.

The owners claim that the town is haunted. As proof, they offer a collection of photographs, showing orbs, which are actually common artifacts of small camera flash photography in dusty rooms. Visitors can find many spooky looking items and metal objects hung to jingle at the slightest breeze.

A definite fact is that I enjoyed the visit and had a wonderful time photographing this location with its countless antique items.

How to get there

Highway 178 near Lake Isabella

Silver City is located in Bodfish, just south of the city of Lake Isabella.

Take the Elizabeth Norris Road exit from Highway 178. Turn right on Lake Isabella Road and drive for about 0.9 miles.

GPS position

• 35°35’51.85″N 118°29’28.42″W

How to photograph Silver City

Skull

Due to the overabundance of items, the main challenge is to isolate charming, spooky, or otherwise interesting details from the clutter. The place is not very large. Scenic photography is not the main attraction. Take some time to read the signs or go inside the open buildings. Even though the curators arranged everything artificially, all of the buildings and many of the items are authentic. The buildings appear tiny as if they belong to an amusement park. They are crooked and sometimes look just plain comical. The hotel and the bank, located next to each other, stand out the most.

Use a CP filter for your outdoor shots. This will enhance the brilliant colors of some buildings and help you reduce reflections from windows. Use natural light inside the buildings to preserve the colors. Boost your ISO if necessary and use an image-stabilized lens. Your camera flash usually makes things look flat and dull.

Gallow in Silver City

Isolate your main subject from the clutter. I purposely underexposed the skull image slightly. This preserves the highlights better, while some of the other items around the skull vanish in darkness. I used the widest aperture to reduce depth of field in the picture of the rope, which helps to isolate it from the busy background. Other techniques for isolating subjects include the spacial distortion of wide-angle lenses, which make the foreground stand out, framing the subject to enhance its visual importance, and using tilt-and-shift lenses or the lensbabies lens.

Would you like to capture a few orbs to scare your fellow travelers or tell ghostly adventure stories at home?

All you need is a small camera, with the flash as close as possible to the lens. Stir up some dirt in a building and take random pictures of things, with the dirt flying around. For a detailed explanation, simply follow the wiki link below. Maybe the new wave of cell phones with flash will refuel our interest in ghost stories.

Even without ghosts, this little place is an exceptional deal and always worth the quick detour from CA-178.

Stream near Highway 178

CA-178 follows a small canyon, west of Lake Isabella. It has a number of scenic pullouts that overlook the river and the canyon. Late afternoon light can be exceptional, especially during the summer and fall.

Lake Isabella itself is very popular with weekend boaters and water-sport enthusiasts. I have not found many good photography options around the lake, but I suspect that late spring to early summer can offer decent wildflower displays. Some purple flowers still graced the canyon walls during my last summer run (image in “How to get here” section).

Best Time of the Day and Best Season

In summer, Silver City opens daily from 10am to 4pm. From November 1^st to April 1^st, the site opens only on weekends from 10am to 4pm.

The lower angel of the winter sun makes this my preferred time to visit locations with very restricted hours.

Time required

You need about 1 – 2 hours here. The site is very small, but many opportunities are waiting for you.

Equipment

• Zoom Lens
• Image Stabilization
• External Flash

Fees

Admission cost is $4 per person, $3 for children 12 and younger, and free for children 5 years or younger.

Close Locations

• Red Rock Canyon State Park
• Trona Pinnacles
• Alabama Hills
• Randsburg Ghost Town
• Darwin
• Darwin Falls
• Ballarat Ghost Town
• Harrisburg Ghost Town
• Skidoo Ghost Town
• Calico Ghost Town
• Sequoia National Forest
• Fort Tejon SHP
• California Poppy Reserve
• Kern County Oilfields

Useful Resources

• Silver City
• How to Photograph Orbs (Wikipedia)

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