This holiday break Robert and I stopped by Manzanar between our Basque dinner in Bakersfield and a visit to the airplane boneyard in Mojave.
Back when it was being used as an internment camp Ansel Adams visited the site and photographed the same monument.
After the war, most of the buildings were sold off as war surplus. At the Visitor's Center gift shop they had copies of Andrew Freeman's book for sale. He took pictures of some of the buildings in their current condition, including this one near Jawbone.
On our way to Mojave we stopped to take pictures of the same building.
It had been badly vandalized since the previous photos were taken.
That got me to thinking about other famous photographs, like Ansel Adam's picture of a cemetery monument near my house in Long Beach. I visited the site when I first moved here, and found that the oil drilling platforms were long gone and a bank of green trees now covered the hill. The scene was quite bucolic, verdant, and restful. 
A few months back some vandals toppled the angel, inadvertently returning some emotional angst to the scene.
January 1, 2008
Ansel, Andy, and I
3 comments:
Thank you for continuing the conversation by leaving a comment! If you post anonymously with a question, check back here in the comments section, as I'll usually reply in the comments section. Comments on posts older than two weeks are welcome, but are moderated, so they may take a while to appear. Irrelevant linking will be deleted.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hope the basque meal and break have been enjoyed thus far.
ReplyDeleteHi Michael,
ReplyDeleteDid you happen to venture back into Manzanar far enough to see any of the less auspicious memorials - names and dates scratched into the concrete of its irrigation channels? I don't read Japanese well enough to say for sure that none of these memos protest "Fuck you Uncle Sam," but they seem to be mainly names and dates testifying, "I labored here to better conditions for my community."
Diane Calder
It was pretty cold the day we were there. We drove around the camp, and got out in a few places. I saw some irrigation canals, but I thought they were from the farm that was at the site previously. I felt that the display at the Japanese American History Museum next to the Geffen was more powerful, as it contained a lot more personal effects and stories. Still, I know a lot more about the person the 405/105 interchange is named after.
ReplyDelete