Greetings from Las Vegas to my faithful followers, loyal friends and random stumble uponers. For some this will be a repeat of my last blog, but with full size (6000x4000), processed photos. For the light painting and astrophotography photos, I'll also include some EXIF data. I recommend clicking the photos and viewing them in a larger size.
There is a photography Meetup group here in Las Vegas called Aspiring Photographers. There is a monthly meeting at which people share tips, expertise and photos, and plan future meetups. There's almost always a First Friday meetup. First Friday is an event in Downtown Las Vegas on the first Friday of every month from spring to autumn: skin painting, food, live music and more. The group also schedules shoots of all kinds: sunsets, sunrises, landscapes, shoots with models and more. Earlier this year there was one to learn how to do levitation photography.
On 24 June 2017, there was a meetup at the International Car Forest of the Last Church in Goldfield. The primary focus of the meetup was light painting and astrophotography. This was the first meetup I attended, though I had planned to attend one earlier this year, but it was cancelled.
Goldfield is about a 3 hour drive north of Las Vegas, but it took all afternoon as there were several stops along the way for photo ops. I met Niraj at Desert Wildlife Refuge. Our first photo stop was Sekhmet Temple of Goddess Spirituality near Cactus Springs, Nevada. It's an interesting place, although I found it a bit bizarre. There wasn't much to it. I was expecting more. Niraj and I ran into Paul, another member of the group, here.
Our next stop was Beatty, Nevada. On the way we mad a pitstop at the Alien Center, which celebrates aliens and Area 51, which is supposedly nearby. The Alien Center is a gas station, convenience store, restaurant, and gift shop. They have all kinds of alien and Area 51 souvenirs and apparel for sale. I almost always stop here for one reason or another when I travel north.
I'm pretty sure Beatty was an impromptu stop. Niraj, who was leading our mini convoy, saw this railroad themed mural and wanted to stop for a photograph or two.
15 minutes and a few photographs later, we headed out of Beatty to Rhyolite, NV. Rhyolite was a booming mining town for a few years in the early 20th century, but the market crash and the Great Depression halted loans and investments. Consequently, needed investments in the mining company, caused the mine to shut down and people to move away. Today, Rhyolite is a ghost town.
We stopped at Tom Kelly's Bottle House first. I took a few photos of the house, but I was more interested in the old, abandoned, and decaying flatbed truck. I thought it was in fascinating subject to photograph and include in landscapes as well. We spent some time at the intact Rhyolite Ghost Casino, which was also the train station at some point. There was an old LA & SL caboose and a large tank to shoot there too.
The Cook Bank Building is only partially standing. Unfortunately, it is fenced to try and control vandalism and taggers. I would have liked to enter the ruins to take some more interesting photos, but, alas, a fence.
Adjacent to Rhyolite is the Goodwell Open Air Museum. where Belgian artist, Albert Szukalski, create his ghostly sculptures, the Ghostly Last Supper and Ghost Rider sculptures.
After a quick pitstop in Beatty, Niraj and I headed for our final destination, the International Car Forest of the Last Church in Goldfield, Nevada. Paul stayed behind to take a few more photos. Then he was going to head up to Tonopah, Nevada, check into his motel and meet us back in Goldfield. I didn't see him again.
Once in Goldfield, we stopped at some radio museum for 30 minutes or more looking at all the stuff (not just radios) and talking with the guy who owns it. Interesting guy; maybe I'll stop and see him next time I'm up that way. Despite that stop, we still had a couple of hours of daylight to take photos of the cars, trucks and buses scattered, many partially buried in the ground, around the area.
Once the sun set, everyone started getting ready to do some light painting and astrophotography. Since it was cloudy, and the forecast was that the clouds would be gone around midnight, we started with light painting. Everyone fell into a few small groups and went off to spots they picked out while it was still light. The group I latched onto headed for the van in one of the photos above. We started off light painting the van. The photo below was the best one I got. Others were either not lit well enough (I probably was too early or too late for the shot), the inside of the van had too much light, or the foreground was lit up.
ABOVE: 30 sec at f/5.6, ISO 800, 24mm
After just light painting the van, we started taking photos of the light painted van along with spinning, burning steel wool, which is a super cool effect.
ABOVE: 5 sec at f/8, ISO 100, 18mm
ABOVE: 5 sec at f/8 ISO 100, 18mm
ABOVE: 8 sec at f/8, ISO 100, 24mm
Once the clouds moved on, I left the group and turned to shooting the Milky Way, which was my primary reason for going. I know the astro photos are grainy (ISO noise). I smoothed out as much as I dared. Next time, I'll try lower ISOs and longer exposures.
ABOVE: 10 sec at f/3.5, ISO 12800, 18mm, White Balance: Tungsten
ABOVE: 10 sec at f?3.5, ISO 12800, 18mm White Balance: Camera Auto
ABOVE: 41 sec at f/3.5, ISO 3200, 18mm, White Balance: Tungsten
ABOVE: 36 sec at f/3.5, ISO 3200, 18mm, White Balance: Lightroom Auto
ABOVE: 30 sec at f/3.5, ISO 3200, 18mm, White Balance: Fluorescent
ABOVE: 30 sec at f/3.5, ISO 3200, 18mm, White Balance: Camera Auto
After shooting tons of photos of the Milky Way, I turned around 180* and found I had a perfect shot of the light painting going on behind and below me, with silhouettes of the two cars framing the scene, and the Big Dipper just above and aligning with the the car on my left.
ABOVE: 1 sec at f/3.5, ISO 12800, 18mm, White Balance: Camera Auto
I finished up my shooting around and was ready to head out for home around 2:00 AM, but didn't leave until almost 3:00 AM. Some people were still shooting, this time star trails. They heeded 45 minutes of complete darkness. So I was stuck since they were between me and the highway.
On my way through Amargosa Valley, the sunrise was spectacular. So spectacular that I had to stop on the side of US 95 and take a few photos.
It was a very long day (22 hours), but it was a fruitful and successful day, as you can tell.
I appreciate any and all feedback, good and bad, on my photos.
COOL ARTISTIC AND INTERESTING IDEA, I THINK...
The next few days, after thinking about the meetup shoot... light painting and astrophotography, I got the idea for a photography project. It would best work as a shootfest or a series of shootfests. It could be any genre of photography that includes models (any and all): boudoir, fashion, swimsuit, lingerie, cosplay (especially anything apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, and even steampunk), fine art nudes, implied nudes, etc.
Why not shoot models posing with the vehicles and with the Milky Way, and paint them (and the vehicles) with light (white light and colors)? I think the photos could be super cool and very artistic.
And taking the idea outside of the International Car Forest of the Last Church, shoots could be anywhere very dark: national parks, state parks that have overnight camping, old ruins and ghost towns (as long as they are accessible 24 hours), and so many more places. If shooting nudes or implied nudes, a fairly secluded location would be needed. For the record, the main part of the International Car Forest of the Last Church is fairly secluded. I'd like to do some night shoots like this at some other locations near me too, like Valley of Fire State Park, Cathedral Gorge State Park, Rhyolite, and a few others.
I'm going up to Goldfield and the International Car Forest of the Last Church 12-13 August 2017 to view and shoot the Perseids Meteor Shower . It's a Saturday and Sunday. I'm inviting anyone and everyone who's interested: photographers, models, astronomy lovers, partiers, anyone). I'd love some company (Mrs. DeadGuitarist won't go... 1) she's not interested; 2) she won't go camping; and 3) the one and only time she went with me on a landscape shoot, it didn't end well). Anyway, we could photograph not only the Perseids and the Milky Way, but we could do some light painting too. I might take 11 August 2017 off from work and drive up a day early for extra astrophotography and light painting. I don't know if I'll camp, sleep in my car, or get a motel in Tonopah (Goldfield doesn't have a motel... no gas station either... not sure about restaurants). If you're interested, please DM me.
Tagging @merryboudoir because she wanted to see the astro photos. Tagging @nebula because who better to model with the Milky Way as her background; @littlejohn22 and @hiptobes just because they commented on the Back of Camera photoblog; and tagging @missy and @rambo, just because.
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Stay Tuned...
DeadGuitarist
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