Jane Ivory: Abandoned and Forgotten

Jane Ivory's mining town images were captured through the windows of buildings abandoned in the early 20th century, up until the late 1930s-early 1940s.

Because it was so difficult to travel away from this remote location in the Eastern Sierras, when the residents gave up extracting the diminishing veins of gold and decided to leave Bodie for good, they took nothing but the clothes on their backs. They climbed onto small horses and pulled carts with no room for possessions, then returned to civilization, traveling on roads that were very difficult to navigate. The remaining structures in Bodie are filled with all that was left behind by the fleeing entrepreneurs - dirty dishes, pool tables, and unused coffins.

Jane has traveled to Bodie multiple times to photograph the remains of this fascinating town that came together in a common greed and fell apart with inevitable disappointment. Enamored with the tableaux of time frozen, she has especially enjoyed pressing her camera up against the grimy windows to capture the scene in front of her while simultaneously capturing the reflection of what remains of the mountain town behind her.

Before taking her first trip to Bodie, Jane was very skeptical, thinking it was likely a cheesy tourist attraction best avoided, but once there, she realized that there was a surprising poignancy to Bodie that pulls you in.  "Abandoned and Forgotten" presents highlights of Jane's photographic journeys to Bodie.