First stop was actually Desert Wildlife Refuge to meet with another person heading up to the meetup spot in Goldfield. No photos from there. It was literally a quick restroom stop, find and meet Niraj and get on the road.
First photo stop was the Sekhmet Temple of Goddess Spirituality near Cactus Springs, NV. A rather odd, though interesting, place if you ask me, but I get a couple of interesting photos
It was here that Niraj and I ran into Paul, another Aspiring Photographers Meetup group member heading up to Goldfield. Paul increased our small caravan from 2 to 3.
We made a short pit stop at the Alien Center, a restaurant, gas station, convenience store and gift shop in Amargosa Valley, NV. It celebrates Area 51, which is supposedly nearby and has all kinds of 👽 and Area 51 novelties and clothing. It's always worth stopping there just to look at all of the stuff. I was tempted to stop there on my way home and buy a couple of t-shirts, but it had been an extremely long day (22 hours between sleeps) and I just wanted to get home.
Next stop was Beatty, NV, where we stopped briefly to take a few photos of a cool railroad themed mural.
Although it was super hot (until we arrived in Goldfield, where we finally escaped 100*+ temperatures), the sky was beautiful with its broken cloud cover. It added interest and drama to my photos.
Next on the list was Rhyolite, NV, a thriving mining town in the early 20th century. It's now a ghost town. The two most intact buildings are the Bottle House and the Rhyolite Ghost Casino. I also got some shots of the Cook Bank Building ruins. And I became obsessed with this old abandoned flatbed truck. I took a lot of photos of the truck trying find the best shots. Just outside Rhyolite is the Goldwell Open air Museum, where Belgian artist, Albert Szukalski, created his Ghostly Last Supper and Ghost Rider art exhibits. I only took a few photos of these ghostly works of art as I was feeling overheated and got back in my air conditioned Mini Cooper to cool off.
Paul wanted to stay in Rhyolite for some more photos, so Niraj and I bid him farewell and left for Goldfield. After some more photos, Paul was going to head up to Tonapah, check into his motel and meet us back in Goldfield, but I never saw him again.
After a quick pit stop at the Death Valley Nut & Candy store in Beatty, Niraj and I drove to Goldfield, NV nonstop.
Once in Goldfield, we stopped at a very interesting place... a Radio Museum, although it had a lot more than radios. The guy who runs the place (I never did catch his name) even had a photography enlarger that he had once used to create PCBs (printed circuit boards). He told us it, and many of the other items, can be purchased by donating to his Museum... the amount of the donation didn't matter. He just wants the stuff to go to a good home. While Niraj was exploring the museum, I chatted with the owner about a variety of things, including Argus C3 cameras.
I guess we hung out there for about 30 minutes, though it could have been longer. We left for our final destination, The International Car Forest & Last Church. In some ways it's like Cadillac Ranch in Texas, but also very different. A variety of cars and trucks buried partway into the earth, including some buses (they appear to be school buses). There is street style artwork on a lot of them. It's a great place for light painting. And since the sky is so dark above Goldfield, it also a fantastic location for astrophotography.
It was cloudy early on, so we did some light painting. But around midnight the clouds obscuring the Milky Way finally moved out/dissipated allowing me to take dozens of shots, experimenting with primarily shutter speed and ISO, but also a bit with aperture. Some people left early, while others slept in their vehicles. The rest went back to light painting while I was experimenting with Milky Way shots. Once I finished, I was in a prime location between two cars to photograph not only the light painting they were doing at a distance, but also the Big Dipper, which was conveniently situated between the cars and above where they were light painting.
I was ready to head home around 2 AM PDT, but a few people started some star trail photos. For what they were trying to accomplish, complete star circles, they needed 45 minutes of complete darkness. They were between my car and the way out, so I had no choice but to stay. It was balmy, so I sat in my camp chair, snacked and looked at the stars. I left just before 3:00 AM PDT. Had to stop for a low tire right at the highway entrance to the "attraction." Fortunately, I carry a portable air pump in my car, especially on road trips, and especially "lucky" because there isn't much of anything in Goldfield (not even a gas station) let alone in the middle of the night. Took but a few minutes to raise my tire to the proper air pressure and I was back on my way home. I stopped in Beatty for gas and restroom break.
I was in the Amargosa Valley when dawn arrived. The sunrise was spectacular! So I just had to stop on the side of US 95 to take a few photos.
(The non back of the camera photos of sunrise are iPhone photos).
I arrived home at 6:30 AM tired but satisfied that I got a lot of great shots.
Hope you enjoyed reading about my day trip and the BOC photos. I will download them from the camera and process them soon.
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Stay Tuned...
DeadGuitarist
Besides Suicide Girls, you can find me on various other social, photography and music sites, as well as career oriented sites:
FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | REVERBNATION (ARTIST) | SOUNDCLOUD | FANDALISM | TUMBLR | FLICKR | 500PX | VIEWBUG | GURUSHOTS | WASTED YEARS (MY PERSONAL WEBSITE) | YOUTUBE | LINKEDIN | AMAZON WISHLIST | Soon to be on Patreon, a brand new website, and an online store where you can buy products with my photos on them.
I'm also on SnapChat (Gri11Sgt), Periscope (GrillSgt) and Uenme (RhythmGuitarist).
I'm not super active on all of them, but I add stuff to each of them occasionally that you won't necessarily find on my SG profile page.
