Rhyolite nevada ghost town trick photography
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RECONNOITERING
IN THE EASTERN SIERRA NEVADA & GREAT BASIN |
The
Death Valley Journal:
Shooting at Night in Rhyolite
Shooting at night in Rhyolite occurred from time to time during its heyday, especially down in the red light section. In years past I also too enjoyed prowling Rhyolite’s dark streets to do some shooting myself. But not with a six-gun, but with a 35mm camera.
One October evening in 1990, my wife and I drove over to Beatty for dinner at a rib joint now long closed down. Afterward, on a dimly moonlit night, we drove up into Rhyolite. Setting up my camera on a tripod in the street with its shutter cocked open, I prowled around the J.S. Cook Bank building and the Porter Brothers store building with a hand held flash unit. Using the flash I “painted” each building in light. Since I was in a ghost town I added some ghostly affects – I “flashed” myself also in various places around the buildings. In one I attempted to “sign” my name with a flashlight.
Today the vast majority of Rhyolite’s ruins are now fenced off. Years of strip mining by Barrick has changed the topography around Rhyolite a bit. I’m glad that I had taken many, many photos of Rhyolite in the 1980s and early 1990s before this all occurred.
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Technical info: Rhyolite, October, 1990. Pentax K1000, open shutter, Kodachrome 64. Most exposures 10 minutes plus. Quarter moon. Hand held strobe camera flash unit, multiple flashes.
©2009,
2010D.A D.A. Wright
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