2.12.2011

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Black Locust Tree, Mount Williamson © kjm; Apple Blossums, Mount Williamson © Toya Miyatake

I really enjoyed my visit to Manzanar. They have a terrific visitors center there, operated by the National Park Service and staffed by a knowledgeable and engaging group of rangers. Manzanar is the most-visited of the former camp sites, both for the well-developed visitor experience, as well as it's proximity to cities in California. A driving tour of the site outlines the scale of the camp, but it was still hard to imagine 10,000 people living in this now very quiet, windblown landscape.

I didn't make many pictures on the site, but shot this tree and Mount Williamson at dusk. The next day, on a visit to the Eastern California Museum in the nearby town of Independence, I found the book Elusive Truth, Four Photographers at Manzanar. On page 104 was this photograph, Apple Blossums, Mount Williamson, by the great Japanese American photographer Toyo Miyatake.

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