Despite artistic imagery found elsewhere, the above photograph is one of the more accurate depictions of the Terlingua “ghost town” (or a section thereof).
To capture this particular image at sundown I made a number of unusual exposure adjustments. Note that the Exposure data indicated on this page reflects a shutter speed of 1/320 of a second, used in conjunction with an electronic flash. This would have been impossible to do on old film-based cameras that maxed-out electronic flash syncing at 1/60 on the oldest of models and 1/125 on subsequent film-based cameras. So 1/320 of a second is smoking fast for a moving part to sync with an electronic flash of light. Indeed, the manual for the Nikon D300S (which I now use) only guarantees syncing at up to 1/250 of a second while other sources indicate syncing up to 1/320 of a second (via a setting in the menu of E1 and using Auto Focus).
I also still use a 1980 year-model Visitor 365 Zoom Thyristor side mount flash in conjunction with a top-mounted Vivitar Vari Sensor. This rig requires a lot of power and allows overriding the ASA/ISO speeds, calculated distances and F-stops that are independently and separately selected in the camera.
In short, then, I lit up the foreground like 4th of July fireworks.
By choosing a low ISO and syncing the flash at such a rapid shutter speed, I was able to illuminate foreground color while capturing a hint of the setting sun’s hue. This result approximated the contrasting colors that the eye could see at the time and which would have otherwise required a long exposure with the cameara.
The original image is a Tagged Image Format File (TIFF) with a file data size of 35 megabytes (MB).
For display on this web site the TIFF was duplicated and the duplicate re-formatted as a Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPG/JPEG) image with a file data size of 4.42 MB. To approximate detail visible at the time of capture the image was sharpened as necessary and resampled via the Photoshop Bicubic Sharpen algorithm. The re-sampling increases the image resolution from 300 Dots Per Square Inch (DPI) to 360 DPI.
Unless otherwise noted the image was corrected to offset color shift and balance. This restores black (shadows), white (highlights) and neutral gray (neutral mid-tones).
• An unnumbered image is the only one of the subject matter.
• A number corresponds to the sequential order in a subject-matter-related sequence.
• The letter “B” indicates color correction to approximate what was visible when the image was captured.
• The letter “C” indicates enhancement beyond an approximation of what was visible at the time of capture.