Things come around, as they say.
Sometime in 1988, as a Geology graduate student on my way to my field study area near Bishop, California. I drove through Death Valley, with likely the obligatory photo of my car at the Sea Level sign.
That was driving my 1973 Ford Maverick and a photo taken on film with my 35mm Nikon Nikkormat. I had no phone with me on that trip.
Two days ago, I drove the same route, seeking the place to do the “now” photo:
Recreating a 1988 Photo flickr photo by cogdogblog shared into the public domain using Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0)
This time it’s me still driving a Ford, but now a 1988 Ford F-150 and the photo taken with an iPhone 6.
I am not quite sure it’s the exact spot, there are a few places the highway passes through sea level. In the 1988 photo you can see the Mesquite sand dunes in the background.
The exact location does not matter much, I was there both times.
This all triggered an Amazing Story of cover art. When I started working as a green ed-tech for the Maricopa Community Colleges, I digitized this photo with a scanner, and it was sitting on my web directory as a file named sealevel.jpg. A German pop band named The Sea Level, contacted me years later asking permission to use it for the cover of their CD.
I still have their music floating around my iPod shuffle. I wish I could say their song came on as I was driving across Death Valley. Well I could, but…
This is the Internet I still love.
That IS an awesome album cover shot. They must have been stoked to find it.
OK, you may have linked to this by mistake on Mastodon, but hey, this is great. You cover photo artist, you.
I spend the bulk of my blogging time making pictures.