Fire in the tunnel, Iron Mountain Road
This image shows part of the Iron Mountain Road in Custer State Park. Designed by Peter Norbeck this 17 mile road goes form Custer State Park to Mount Rushmore. This whole road was designed to enjoy the ride, it took twists and turns and included unnecessary tunnels and turns. The road was designed for enjoyment, not efficiency. There are three tunnels, one shown here.
I love the idea of someone designing a road for the enjoyment of the road. It forces you to slow down and enjoy the Black Hills. When in the Black Hills I enjoy this stretch of road probably more than Mount Rushmore. So on this trip I wanted to pay homage to this by doing some cool night photography.
We drove the road specifically looking for someplace we could capture the essence of the road. The trouble is, there is hardly anyplace to pull over and stop. I really wanted an image that would show the wood supports of the bridges, but settled on this curve and tunnel, because they show the sheer unnecessary elements of the road that I love! Even here we had to park on the other side of the tunnel and walk to this spot. We then had to climb up on some rocks to shoot down as much as possible. There were no cars on the road at this hour, so we uses two way radios to take turns driving the truck through this part. we then walked the street with lights to fill in the trees. This is a composite, though my buddy Tom wanted to do it in one frame, and his looks great too! We tried this several different ways, driving in the middle of the road, drive both ways on each side of the street. In the end, I liked this simple one-pass, two color approach. It just looked so clean.
Let me know what you think, and when in the Black Hills, you MUST visit this sensational, inefficient road. Its more American than the guys on the hill for sure.
Fire in the tunnel, Iron Mountain Road
This image shows part of the Iron Mountain Road in Custer State Park. Designed by Peter Norbeck this 17 mile road goes form Custer State Park to Mount Rushmore. This whole road was designed to enjoy the ride, it took twists and turns and included unnecessary tunnels and turns. The road was designed for enjoyment, not efficiency. There are three tunnels, one shown here.
I love the idea of someone designing a road for the enjoyment of the road. It forces you to slow down and enjoy the Black Hills. When in the Black Hills I enjoy this stretch of road probably more than Mount Rushmore. So on this trip I wanted to pay homage to this by doing some cool night photography.
We drove the road specifically looking for someplace we could capture the essence of the road. The trouble is, there is hardly anyplace to pull over and stop. I really wanted an image that would show the wood supports of the bridges, but settled on this curve and tunnel, because they show the sheer unnecessary elements of the road that I love! Even here we had to park on the other side of the tunnel and walk to this spot. We then had to climb up on some rocks to shoot down as much as possible. There were no cars on the road at this hour, so we uses two way radios to take turns driving the truck through this part. we then walked the street with lights to fill in the trees. This is a composite, though my buddy Tom wanted to do it in one frame, and his looks great too! We tried this several different ways, driving in the middle of the road, drive both ways on each side of the street. In the end, I liked this simple one-pass, two color approach. It just looked so clean.
Let me know what you think, and when in the Black Hills, you MUST visit this sensational, inefficient road. Its more American than the guys on the hill for sure.