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Hot Springs General Store

I scouted the Hot Springs General Store as one of the potential locations for night photography. I had seen daylight photographs of the structure and I knew that a night photo would be interesting. The challenge was how to light it properly. See my technical notes below the photo for these details. There are actually three structures in the area. The General Store (which also doubled as the Post Office) is by far the more interesting of the three, mostly due to the very nice palm tree. The other two are much harder to photograph and light. One is a small home and the other one is a long building that served as guest rooms. Perhaps I will photograph these in future trips.

Hot Springs, also known as Boquillas Hot Springs, is a former resort in what is now Big Bend National Park. It was developed in 1909 by J. O. Langford. The site was the first major tourist attraction in the area, predating the establishment of the national park. The attraction is the hot spring that flows next to the Rio Grande a short walk from the General Store.

Hot Springs General Store
Hot Springs General Store

This image was taken with my Canon EOS 5DS using my Canon EF 16-35mm f/4 Lens set on 16mm. The camera was set on Manual mode with the aperture set at f/5, shutter speed at 25 seconds and the ISO set at 4000. I used a tripod for stability. I leveraged the moonlight for the exterior, lit the inside of the structure with one strand of “fairy lights” and lit the tree with my Coast HP7R on low bean with a diffuser and some custom filters. This is a single image processed in Lightroom and completed in Photoshop using Nik Color Efex Pro.

You can see my gallery for the Big Bend area by clicking here. Please use the section below to post your comments, questions or suggestions.

T. Kahler Photography
© 2017 T. Kahler Photography

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