We're Off On The Road To Nevada

But First - Arizona Highways

When I was young, I'd sometimes see Arizona Highways at the dentist's office. Since it was more interesting than Highlights for Children, I'd look at it instead. As I got older and started using a camera, AZ Highways' photography was my gold standard. In Illinois, there was nothing like those wide open, empty desert vistas with golden sunset light.

After college, working in Northern California's south San Francisco Bay Area (Silicon Valley), there was still nothing quite like it. When we moved to New Mexico, I finally had the vistas again. But I never forgot how pretty Arizona was in nice light. Little did I know I'd be adding another state to that list. And while I was on the way to something completely unrelated.

Change It Up

Instead of going to Breckenridge, Colorado for the Holiday Dog Parade in early December, we decided to see a niece and her family in Sparks, Nevada before Christmas. Neither of us had been to the Reno-Sparks area for many years, and never on US 95 north from Las Vegas. Out of Albuquerque, traveling through Arizona on I40 gave us gorgeous end of day light as we approached Holbrook and Winslow. It looked just like Arizona Highways to me. I don't usually like shooting through a windshield from a moving RV, but there would have been no other way to get these pictures.

Heading for the sun, I40 underpass near Winslow

Orange Highway - I-40 near Winslow, Arizona — Orange Highway

Finally the light got too low to stop motion at highway speeds. (There was one interesting blur shot.) I'd gotten shots framed with moving trucks and overpasses, that included lines of cars on the horizon plus the recently decommissioned but still lit up Cholla Power Plant. I was happy with what I saw in the camera's little LCD.

The End of Coal in the West - decommissioned Cholla Power Plant

When I used to shoot film, I had to get the shot somewhere within 36 or 37 frames. Changing rolls of film was time consuming, and would make me miss pictures. Digital avoids all of that, and let me shoot this series of shots without stopping in rapidly changing light and action. The only problem was the dirty windshield. Autofocus kept wanting to focus on dirt spots instead of the distant scene, so I switched to manual focus for a lot of these.

We usually stop at Winslow's Relic Road brewpub, but this time we opted for the more upscale Turquoise Room, named for the luxury diners onboard BNSF passenger trains back in the day. Outstanding fare included carnitas with black beans, polenta, calabacitas vegetable medley, and sweet corn with the vegetable medley and 1/2 chicken and drinks (salted caramel martini, Bulleit Rye Manhattan). We discovered the RV park we liked in town was closed for the winter. So we ended up at the empty but open Circle Pines KOA.

On To Nevada

Nevada is starkly beautiful. Scrubby, salt flatted foregrounds, abrupt mountain ranges with snow higher up, lines of utility poles stretching into the empty distance, all punctuated with the occasional mining ghost town. Then there are the distant lines of dust storms, visible for miles. Scrub-covered mountain reflections in Walker Lake next to bighorn sheep warning signs let you know you're not in Kansas anymore.

Into the Past at Goldfield, Nevada — Into the Past

Goldfield’s Funky Railroad

In Goldfield, I'd thought I was going to do night photography around the International Car Forest of the Last Church. But after talking with locals and looking at the dirt road we'd have to drive in the dark to get there, I decided the old railyard was a better bet. It was also just across the street from the Santa Fe Saloon. We had a drink there while talking with friendly locals, followed by dinner at the nearby Mozart Tavern (great eggrolls, among other things).

Then it was time to set up the tripod and the lights, and stumble around in the dark photographing. To start with, there was too much artificial light where I didn't want it, killing a face-on steam locomotive shot.

So I walked in far enough to hide front lights from the Santa Fe Saloon behind the locomotive and next door building. Then I set up for an old train car, railroad loading dock and office building, and a rusted automobile missing its engine. It was like a commercial assignment where you had to make something impressive out of a rundown workshop with old tools lying around.

Since I couldn't see well enough to move anything in the dark, selective lighting made it interesting by focusing attention on a few critical details. I lit the boxcar's interior with blue light, gridded to avoid light spill on the ground. It looked like the interior was glowing. Then I placed a red light shining through the railroad office window for some mystery. Was someone breaking in? Or was the stationmaster just working late? We'll never know.

Blue Light Special, Goldfield and Tonopah Railroad

The rusted car glowed red inside and in its red-hot weed power plant, with external blue lighting in back. Was the ignition on?

Weed Power under the Stars, Goldfield NV — Weed Power under the Stars

Lighting up Fort Churchill

Fort Churchill was built in 1860 to protect settlers, emigrants and communications lines from the resident Paiutes. Siting the fort near the Carson River provided abundant fresh water. After walking the place in the afternoon, I decided on the 2-story adobe ruin of one of the officers' quarters to light up. I spoke with Nevada State Park rangers to if was OK to photograph there that night (my research indicated it was, but you never know), and they told me to go for it. I love places with no access restrictions!

Officers' Quarters & Barracks, Fort Churchill NV — Officers' Quarters & Barracks, Fort Churchill

We drove north to Fernley for dinner, then headed back to the fort. With sunset around 4:30PM, it was already dark by the time we got back to the fort.

Local Color in the Officers' Quarters, Fort Churchill, NV — Newly-restored open air adobe high-rise…

I wanted to suggest the entire form of the officers' quarters, and after dark, I don't need much light to do that. I started by lighting the left front (northeastern) corner with a diffused Luxli Fiddle LED panel. But there was too much light spill on the ground and everywhere else, so I pulled out one of Jeff McCrum's Lanceli grids and popped it on. That took care of the spill, but I needed to move the light farther back and aim it up a bit for the light I wanted. Perfect!

I wanted two different interior colors. I put a Luxli Viola 2 LED panel on the ground and aimed it up at the wall to diffuse it in the enclosed ruin area.

The second interior color came from another Luxli Fiddle, out of sight behind the southwestern wall. I wanted it to shine through the window opening. I didn't expect it to light up the west-facing wall, but hey, why not? After some direction and intensity adjustment, it looked pretty cool!

I did some color and brightness experimentation, and settled on red for the main front wall, blue for the enclosed interior, and green for the southwestern window and west wall. RGB is classic for a former chip design engineer.

Mystery in the Officers' Quarters, Fort Churchill NV — Somebody’s in there

Light Up To Focus!

After some fiddling with light intensity to avoid overpowering the sky, I was ready to shoot. By this time, though, clouds started moving in. Out of everything I shot, there were a couple decent pictures and one outstanding shot. I scale-focused the manual tilt-shift lens I was using - big mistake. Many shots were out of focus. I knew better - I should have brightened one of my lights to focus on a building detail, then turned the light back down, and taken test pictures to double-checked building and star sharpness before the main shots. Oops.

I shot facing south (at the north walls) with the light from distant Silver Springs and Fernley at my back. Some cloud cover took on the reddish hue of my opposite corner front light plus some yellow tinting from the distant lit-up visitor's center. Orion was rising above the ruin between 7-9pm.

I imagined this real estate ad for the place -
Newly-restored open air adobe high-rise, sleeps 3-4. Last residents were U.S. Army officers - immaculately kept. Great views in every direction. Very pure water from nearby Carson River. Possible government financing - inquire.

Finally - The International Car Forest of the Last Church

Driving back from Sparks, we stopped once again in Goldfield. This time, though, we got there early enough to take a fresh look. And there was the International Car Forest of the Last Church, beckoning in the distance. So we carefully drove the dirt road up to the entrance to scout it out. It turned out to be easier than, say, the bumpy, rutted washboardy 21 miles to Chaco Canyon.

Sunny Nose Dive, International Car Forest of the Last Church, NV — Sunny Nose Dive at the International Car Forest of the Last Church

I walked around with a remote-triggered flash, looking for likely victims. It was an embarrassment of riches for a light painter, with over 30 vehicles to choose from. As my wife walked our pups around the place, I found myself on a ridge at a nose-dived bus with a skull on its side. I thought about how I'd light the interior for every presence and exterior for overall mood. Then I placed a small remote flash to fill the shadowed side, diffracted the sun against an edge, and shot.

Purple People Eater, International Car Forest of the Last Church, NV — Purple People Eater

There were a lot more vehicles below the ridge, so I walked down. I photographed a crooked sedan with red graffiti (I like red, especially on cars) with as few others tilted in the background, again using the small remote flash as a fill light. Then I saw the purple face and teeth. I was so captivated I shot lots of this one. I took the obligatory picture of the big nose-down school bus, then lit and shot a couple more. But what really caught my eye was a small food truck with a sedan stacked on top. (That's right. On top.)

So I had my two night targets set.

Bus To The Center Of The Earth

We wanted to go back to the Santa Fe Saloon, but it was closed on Sundays. We instead had drinks at the Occidental, on the recommendation of one of the Goldfield locals. Then we went next door for dinner.

Since the sun set around 4:30 pm, I had full darkness pretty early. We drove back to the International Car Forest and parked near the skull bus. I figured this one would be good with just two lights, inside and outside. The interior light was easy - I put a Luxli Fiddle LED panel with a diffusion dome out of sight, but lighting the front interior with reflected light. Then I used another Luxli Fiddle with a grid to light the outside without spill. I chose to aim my light for the mid-front, but If I'd brought a light with a wider beam, I'd have lit more of the bus' length. I moved camera positions to show a nose-down station wagon in the distance for some perspective. I tried some different colors, but settled on blue outside and hellish red inside for this bus to the center of the earth. 1023124-Edit-2.tif

The Phantom Toll Booth

Then I went down to find the food truck with the stacked sedan. There were some tires leading to the entry in back. I lit the interior with white light, and the red-faced woman on the side with a reddish light. Because I narrowly restricted the side-lit face, I got what looked like a toll booth. As a child, a grade school teacher had read us The Phantom Toll Booth, and that's what I imagined.

I re-aimed the side light to light up the ground and tires a bit and changed colors, shooting a mouse's-eye view of a tire trail to the stars.

A Mouse's View of the Tire Trail, , International Car Forest of the Last Church, NV — A Mouse's View of the Tire Trail

International Car Forest of the Last Church

The Magic Bus

I moved to the front to put my back towards the lit-up town. There was a lot more small-detail graffiti on this side. I lit the rear exterior with light green, the front with yellow, and the interior with g purple. I aimed my exterior lights to put some light on the stacked sedan. I started with an eye-level side view, but that looked too normal. When I got the camera down on the ground for a passenger's front corner view, I had my Magic Bus, straight out of a 1960s psychedelic dream.

I heard some yipping and high-pitched barking in the dark distance - it sounded like the coyotes were having some fun. I just hoped they didn't decide to come after a night photographer armed only with a tripod and light stands.

I never did find the toothy purple face again. (Purple people-eater, maybe?) Oh well, next time.

Shot Notes

I used three different cameras and mostly two lenses for the night pictures. I've liked the Rokinon SP 14mm f/2.4 for its extremely wide, distortion-free view and big maximum aperture. But I discovered it wasn't recognized through Canon's EF to RF adapter when I tried it on an EOS R5 II camera. Instead, I put it on Sigma's MC-21 EF to L-mount converter, and used it on Panasonic Lumix S5 II and Leica SL3 cameras where it *was* recognized.

I knew I'd be shooting tall architectural ruins, so I brought my TS-E 17mm/4L tilt-shift lens for distortion-free pictures and the EOS R5 II to mount it on. I used a Lumix S 20-60mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom on the Panasonic Lumix S5 II for the Arizona Highway shots. With that camera's large pixels, the higher ISOs needed with the small-aperture zoom around sunset gave acceptably-low noise.

Tilt-shift lenses let you shift the lens up to increase the vertical field of view instead of tilting the camera back to fit in higher bits of tall buildings. Yes, I could correct for the tilting in post, but I prefer to see exactly what I'm getting in the camera. After all, I couldn't easily go back and shoot remote ruins again if there was an unfixable mistake. And I have a couple tilt-shift lenses from years of shooting real estate for clients.

I also brought an APO-Summicron-SL 28mm f/2 ASPH lens for family shots and wide view low-light shooting, but didn’t use it for any of the night shots.

Is This My Bus? -International Car Forest of the Last Church, NV — Is This My Bus?

My lights of choice on this trip were all Luxli LED panels. The small Luxli Fiddle has a built-in rechargeable battery (charges with USB C) and weighs less than a pound. I have two of them, along with Jeff McCrum's Lanceli grids to focus the light and Luxli's own diffusion domes to spread it. Unfortunately, Luxli discontinued them, and haven't released a replacement model yet.

For a third light, I brought a Luxli Viola 2. This light requires a slide-in Li Ion battery, and needs either an external charger with a micro USB connector or a proprietary charger to the light. I like to use standard USB C charging as much as possible, so the Viola 2 panels while more powerful than the Fiddle are a bit of a pain. However, the Viola 2s also take Jeff McCrum's Hex stack grids. You can use just one grid for a 20% narrower beam spread than the unbridled light, and each additional grid you slide on narrows the beam another 20%. They also cost you some light, but doing light painted subjects coupled with starry backgrounds, I'm usually at 1% or less of any Luxli panel's light output. So there's plenty of light power available to overcome any loss.

More Information

Lance Keimig (November 18, 2023), GUIDING THE LIGHT: OUR FRIEND IMPROVES LUXLI LED PANELS. Retrieved from https://www.nationalparksatnight.com/blog/2023/11/18/guiding-the-light-our-friend-improves-luxli-led-panels

Nevada Division of State Parks (2025), Fort Churchill State Historic Park. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6Dr4Y3pF6I

Nevada State Parks (nd), History of Fort Churchill State Historic Park. Retrieved from https://parks.nv.gov/learn/park-histories/fort-churchill-history

Raise the Stakes Projects (nd), International Car Forest of the Last Church. Retrieved from https://raisethestakeseditions.com/international-car-forest/

Travel Nevada (nd), Goldfield. Retrieved from https://travelnevada.com/cities/goldfield/