Steel and Sky

 Many thanks to Nelson for inviting me to collaborate with him. Here I present one of my first pictures, and hope that we can all learn something from each other.

I have always liked the mining industry. The direct contrast between the hard steel and metal, and the often incredible locales in which miners work, has fascinated me since I was young. I think this picture is a good example of what I mean. The little ghost town of Silver Reef, a few miles north of St. George, Utah, is littered with remnants of the silver mining age, and that's where this was taken.

A blizzard the day before left the area surrounding covered with an few inches of snow, and my lens had a frozen smudge from my attempts at photographing said storm, so that's why the center is a bit blurry. Oh well.

Anyway, this is the elevator car, propped up on the headframe by an I-beam welded to the structure (the cables that supported the car have long been cut and dangle from the wheel above).

This picture was taken with my cheap Canon Powershot in below-zero weather, and has not been edited yet. Normally when I find a good one among the hundreds that I take, I will run it through the standard Photoshop processes of sharpen, contrast, etc. Below is the final edit, with an attempt at removing that blurry light spot:

And now, that light spot is transformed into a dark spot...but I am only to blame, for not paying attention to the sky behind the car.