Nevada gold mine shoot

A long time client (AMEC) loved the annual report photos I did for them here in Phoenix so much that they had me fly into Elko Nevada to get a similar photo of them and their client at the open-pit Cortez Gold Mine in Crescent Valley (middle of no-where Nevada).

Nevada just had a record snow-fall the week before and more was forecast as I traveled up, so I was really concerned that the shoot would be snowed out. Not to mention, I would have to drive almost 2 hours to the mine.

It turned out to be a beautiful drive to the mine. Very epic sweeping views of the snowy and stark terrain.

Here's my favorite shot, AMEC's designed and built "tailings pond" for the mine (no boating, please) :

The working conditions. Muddy and frozen at the same time, like working in a gooey slurppy. I stood in the bed of the truck for the tailings pond shot. About froze my rear off.

I used my White Lightnings for lighting,and a Paul C. Buff Vagabond battery and a Tronix battery for power. Worked perfectly.

The second location, at the edge of the open-pit mine, 1,000 feet to the bottom. The mud stuck to your boots so much, I felt like Frankenstien stomping around. The wind really kicked up here.

We were about half-way through the shoot when a major gust of wind come up out of the pit and blew the hardhats off the engineers and knocked over the light stand (in the photo below) into the mud, shorting out my Vagabond battery; a big "ZZZT" and flash of light, and the battery was toast, literally. The White Lightning worked fine after a good cleaning.