Bodie, a genuine California gold-mining ghost town a few miles from the Nevada border, was once a booming, brawling, blasphemous town of 10,000 – a “sea of sin, lashed by the tempests of lust and passion.” I want you to first see where it is – a cluster of brown structures adrift on a landscape so barren it defies description. A city of ghosts afloat no longer in a sea of sin, but on a sea of sage. To express a sense of place, I emphasize the sage and de-emphasize the town itself in this shot. A dusty trail (so dangerous that I sprained my ankle on it a few moments before making this image) leads us straight in to a church – the most lofty structure in this most villainous of towns.