A Trip to Big Bend!

 Dorgan House at Big Bend

 A couple of weeks ago several friends and I went down to the Big Bend area of Texas. Since there is not a whole lot of civilization in the area, it has some of the darkest skies on the planet. It was also during the dark of the moon and the peak of the Perseid Meteor shower.

 Terlingua Cemetery at Night

We divided the trip into different segments since it is such a long drive to get to Big Bend. Our destination was the ghost town of Terlingua which is actually on the far side of Big Bend. Our first night of shooting we stopped at Fort Davis and photographed at the McDonald Observatory. Great clear skies and some of the brightest milky way I have seen. Unfortunately the observatories were completely dark and there wasn't a red glow coming out of them as there was on my previous trip. That red glow sure adds interest to your images.

 Terlingua Cemetery and Perseid Meteors

After breakfast the following day we headed towards Terlingua. After scouting some locations that afternoon we realized the area had a lot of interesting things to be shooting after dark. Despite the scouting, we took off that evening to a site that I had only seen on Google Earth. The shell of the Dorgan House was a 30 minute drive from Terlingua. We found it right before dark and it did not disappoint. I added some LED lights inside and we also light painted the exterior. The resulting image is at the top of the page.

Stone Ruins and Milky Way

After we finished at the Dorgan House, we headed back to Terligua. The old cemetery was our favorite location. Lots of crosses and stone monuments helped keep us busy until 3am. If you look at the large view of each cemetery image you will see some of the many Perseid Meteors that we saw. They were sneaky little dudes. The very biggest and brightest we saw on the trip all managed to avoid the camera lens. A little light painting was done on both the cemetery images.

Terlingua Church #2

The following evening we drove about 20 miles down the road to the Contrabando Movie set which is located next to the Rio Grande on the Texas Mexico border. Six or eight different movies have been filmed there although I haven't heard of any of them. It is an interesting place to take some pictures but the weather that evening didn't really cooperate. It was cloudy and trying to rain. It looked like our clear weather had come to an end. Fortunately, by the time we got back to Terlingua, most of the clouds had cleared. Yahoo! The night wasn't lost.

Old GMC Bus

The stone ruins and the old church were almost completely lighted from the lights in Terlingua which is not really that much of a ghost town. A popular Bar and Grill was not too far away. The only thing added was the light coming from the interior of the church. Several of my LED lights gave it just the right glow.
I had hoped to get permission to photograph the old bus during the night since it was right next to an artist's studio and home. Since I couldn't find the owner, I had to settle for a daytime shot. I like the image I got but still would have liked to have done some light painting on it around 2 in the morning.

Officer's Quarters View

The following day we decided to drive part of the way home and come up with something we could photograph after dark. I decided a stop by Fort McKavett near Menard might be just the thing. It was looking very cloudy near  sunset, but once again it  cleared off and gave us some clear skies and a great view of the milky way and the meteor shower. The fort has numerous buildings which only have some of their stone walls remaining. They made great subjects to combine a little light painting with the ruins and the stars. Overall the trip was a great success.

The McDonald Observatory and Guadalupe Mountains National Park!

 McDonald Observatory and the Milky Way

 Last weekend I traveled to El Paso, Texas to participate in my final art festival of the year. Weather for the festival turned cold, windy, and even icy, but the two days I photographed prior to the festival were great. The weather was warm with little wind and the clouds vanished after sunset for my first stop at the McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis. I had driven all day from my home in mostly cloudy conditions but it seemed the farther I drove west the clearer the skies became. My last minute decision to go photograph the observatory paid off. Skies cleared at sunset and a gorgeous Milky Way was clearly visible once all signs of the sun were gone. I was also pleasantly surprised by the red glow coming out of the observatory. I could barely make it out with my eyes but a long exposure made the red very obvious in the photographs.

Guadalupe Reflections #2

 After photographing at the McDonald Observatory, I drove 80 more miles to Van Horn and finally stopped for the day. After shooting a few things in Van Horn the next morning, I drove to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The first thing I did when I arrived was to scout out the salt flats west of the park. I had heard that there was some flooding back in September and I also remember seeing pictures of the mountains reflected in a large lake. Sure enough part of the salt flat was now a very large shallow lake. My plans for the evening were now to come back at sunset.
 

 Guadalupe Sunset

After driving back to the park, I spent most of the afternoon hiking in McKittrick Canyon. GMNP has a lot of maple trees growing in the canyons and the fall color can be spectacular. Unfortunately, I already knew that I was about two weeks past the peak. Many of the trees had already lost their leaves and the rest were soon to drop. Peak color or not the hike is still very pretty. After the hike it was back to the flooded salt flats. Conditions could not have been better. The winds totally died and a few clouds pinked up at sunset.

 

 The Light From Within

Before starting my final drive to El Paso I had one more image I wanted to create. Just down the road from the salt flat was some abandoned buildings. I set up the tripod and set the camera for 30 second exposures. This gave me enough time to fire a flash with a colored gel several times during an exposure. I had planned to combine parts of several exposures but decided the light on this single exposure worked just fine.

Sooooooooo...after two pleasant days of photography just how bad was the weather for the art show? Well, the weather changed dramatically on Friday. During the show on Saturday and Sunday it was windy and the temperature never reached 40 degrees. I also knocked some snow and ice off the roof of my tent Sunday morning. That is the first and hopefully the last time I have to deal with that. I did manage to sell a few pieces despite the less than favorable conditions. Overall, I would consider it a successful trip to west Texas.