Yosemite as Place

I had initially intended this to be a place where I'd post anything and everything that I came across or thought about related to this western business. Then I became wordy and attempted to be thoughtful. That's all fine and well, but let's get to that surfeit of information business.

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I'm working on this coffee table book on California history where I get to find old pictures and then say something somewhat meaningful about them. Here are two of my favorite pictures of the Valley.


Roger Minick's "Woman with scarf at Inspiration Point, Yosemite National Park" (1980). (Be sure to check out the rest of his "Sightseer Series.)

I love the visual commodity of Yosemite. Yosemite as nature isn't all that interesting to me compared to Yosemite as pilgrimage spot, Yosemite as Californian product, Yosemite as American ideal of nature. Inspiration Point has been photographed so many times that, in all honesty, I find it hard to imagine what the Valley's like looking west instead of east. The old world has Canterbury and Mecca, we have the National Park System.


Rondal Partridge's "Pave it and Paint it Green" (mid-1960's). Partridge studied with Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange.

Is that my grandparents' car, fourth row back? They spent a few weeks in the Valley each summer with my dad and uncle and whichever family or friend child tagged along.

Yosemite would mean nothing to us if this didn't happen. Yosemite as possibility. You can live in San Mateo or San Bernardino but Yosemite is just right there, every Labor Day, any weekend, every 4 AM, every lunch at the Ahwanee. If we couldn't visit Yosemite it would mean nothing to us Californians.

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Thoughts and ramblings again. Really just meant to show off those pictures. I'll get better at this brevity business.