The Lost America Blog

Uncle Phil’s Shotgun Greeting

Uncle Phil's Shotgun Greeting  :::::  Cantil, California

Uncle Phil’s Shotgun Greeting ::::: Cantil, California

The night before last October’s workshop, one of my students, Ron Pinkerton, took me to a Mojave desert ghost town called Cantil.  All that’s left are few buildings and this trailer.  Nice spot!  After setting up and shooting for a few minutes, a figure approached out of the darkness with a shotgun.  “I gotcha covered! Yer trespassin’, get outta here!”  I quickly shined my flashlight at my tripod and gave a friendly “Howdy!  We’re just photographers!”  He handed the canon to his wife, who was a few yards deeper in the shadows (holding another gun on us) and approached me.  My heart was in my mouth those first few seconds, but within minutes it was like we were old pals.  Turns out he’d lived there for decades and has run off countless vandals and scrappers.  He also told me that a man had been murdered inside this trailer, back in the 1980s.  It was an interesting night.

Full moon.  Ron was shooting on the other side of the trailer and adding red light.  Doing numerous exposures myself, I picked the one where his lighting also worked on this side of the trailer.  Three 10-minute exposures stacked in Photoshop for 30 minute star trails.

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