Ghost Town Church & Storage Tanks, Goldfield by Royce Howland

Large storage tanks from abandoned mining works stand ranked behind a weather-beaten chapel in the ghost town of Goldfield, Arizona.

Story Behind the Scene:

On our second full day in the Phoenix area to photograph our project, host Ken Ross took Peter Carroll and me to the old ghost town of Goldfield, Arizona. It was a blazing hot day, and we were feeling the heat in a powerful way. Touristy though Goldfield is, it proved to be absolutely jam-packed with all kinds of interesting photo subjects, and I quickly lost track of the fact that I was cooking in the heat.

Goldfield is located on the Apache Trail, near the present day city of Apache Junction, east of Phoenix. Both are bounded further to the east by the Superstition Mountains. Spurred in part by a real gold find, and in part by the pursuit of the legendary Lost Dutchman Mine, Goldfield first boomed in the 1890′s… but it just as quickly went bust and entered its first phase of ghost town status before the turn of the century. After new mining methods and industry were introduced again in the early 1920′s, the town was reborn… but once again died out quickly and became a ghost town for the 2nd time. The location visitors can see today is a reconstruction that opened in the 1980′s. The Church at the Mount, partially pictured here, is an active congregation. Perhaps this time the ghost town of Goldfield will keep on living.

Under a clear blue sky, I found a composition by using a medium telephoto focal length to isolate a series of complementary geometric shapes — rectangles, triangles and arcs. All of the objects were covered with textured details, and the angle of the light helped lend a sense of contours and depth to the objects shown here in only 2 dimensions. The result seemed like an excellent addition to the exhibit series.