Noel Kerns' photostream  

Inside the cab of the abandoned B&E dragline out near Ferris, Texas. Here's a shot of what this behemoth looks like from the outside.

While it may not look like it, this space was surprisingly difficult to light-paint. The mixture of different surfaces and tones coupled with the ambient light made getting the values in the different areas pretty challenging. I probably ran 8 or 10 short test exposures before nailing a combination of strobe hits that produced the result you see here. Then it was just matter of duplicating the lighting scheme, and letting the background burn in from the moonlight.

You gotta view it large on black to see all the details.

Night, full moon, 2 cross-fired strobe hits up top (one at each side window), and one below, about a foot off the floor, at the base of the operators chair.

Down near Ferris, Texas this enormous piece of machinery, a Bucyrus & Erie Walking Dragline Excavator, sits gathering rust at it's last job site.

The sense of scale is a little difficult to interpret from the photo, but this thing is huge; about 3/4 of a football field long. The engine room alone is about the size of a two-story tract home.

Almost actual size?

Night, full moon, natural X2000 flashlight.

Proud to announce that a ten-image collection of my work is now available for purchase through the Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art. The prints are available in 12" x 18" and located in the Museum Shop, just to the left of the main entrance.

The Fort Worth MOMA is located at 3200 Darnell Street, Fort Worth, Texas. If you're in the area, stop on by and check them out, or if you see one you like, pick one up!

The enormous Lockhart General Store sits gutted and abandoned in the virtual ghost town of Lockhart, California. Two stories high and with the roof missing, it looks more like a gymnasium or inner-city playground inside than a retail store.

Lockhart is not a place you wind up by accident; it's well off the beaten path, but accessible by either Harper Lake Rd from CA-58, or from Hinkley, CA via the OLD CA-58 route, now referred to as "Santa Fe Avenue", which is a bit of an odd name, since it's nothing more than 9 miles of wide dirt road running through and around absolutely nothing. To be fair though, the road WAS in nice shape; even in my little midsize rental car, I could crank it up past 70 mph and the road was as smooth as an interstate.

There's nothing quite like the serenity of nights by yourself, out in the middle of the desert, far away from anywhere and anyone. Try it...you'll see.

Large On Black

Night, 2/3 moon, CTO-gelled flashlight & blue-gelled strobe.

Gas Station at the remote Mojave Tropico Movie Set, on the western edge of the Mojave Desert.

Large on Black

Night, full moon, CTO-gelled flashlight.