I’d been dying to night shoot this amazing sign made from a real semi-truck on the side of Interstate 80, east of Reno, for 20 years, but it was never right for my style of time-exposure night work because it was always lit up with florescent lights. Well, patience pays off: the Truck Inn Truckstop closed a few years ago and the sign has finally gone dark.
Space Truckin’
These were shot in the last hour before dawn during the October 2011 full moon. The first image “Space Truckin’” is a stack of four 9-minute exposures, yielding 36 minute star trails. “The Altar to 18-Wheels” is a stack of three 8-minute exposures yielding 24 minute star trails. The Zen-like experience of watching the owls that live in this thing hunt for prey in the weeds around me–while the image slowly burns in and the stars crawl across the sky–it encapsulates everything that I love about night photography. The other 2 images are short exposures around the pump islands just before the sun came up. These have accent lighting added with flashlights.
The Altar to 18-Wheels
It was the fifth night of shooting in a row for me (staying up until 4AM or later) so I was pretty much a gibbering idiot at this point. When the sun finally crested the horizon, I caffeinated heavily and made the 6 hour drive home.
Tall Curbs
The Diesel Motel
These images are not Photoshop creations. What you see is what I shot that night.
Photo Credits
All Photographs Are © Troy Paiva
Troy Paiva Photographer Bio
Troy Paiva, AKA Lost America, has been creating light painted night photography in abandoned locations and junkyards since 1989. His documentarian, yet surrealist–sometimes playful, sometimes haunting work examines the evolution and eventual abandonment of the communities, infrastructure and social iconography spawned during America’s 20th century expansion into the cities and deserts of the West–and the intensely exhilarating, yet strangely comforting act of sneaking around in the middle of the night, creating art from its ruins.
Troy’s imagery has appeared in galleries, museums, and in print, in over a dozen countries–including three Stephen King book covers. He’s created two award-winning print monographs: Lost America: Night Photography of the abandoned Roadside West in 2003 and Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration in 2008. In 2012 he released two e-books: Light Painted Night Photography: The Lost America Technique a “how to” book, and Boneyard featuring over 50 never released aviation graveyard images.
Website: Lost America
Follow Troy Paiva on: Lost America on Flickr
I can see why you’d want to shoot that sign–very cool results. In the second image, the star trails give a sense that the truck has taken flight.