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Rangefinder Magazine
September 2003

Profile: Berthold Steinhilber by Lou Jacobs Jr.
Creative Light in the Dark

In 2002, I was astonished by a long picture spread in Smithsonian magazine. Shining out of its pages was a unique photo series of ghost town structures, most in landscape settings with details, photographed by Berthold Steinhilber. Since these ghostly subjects were shot at night, it seemed evident that Mr. Steinhilber had walked carefully through the scenes many times, painting aged wood and metal with countless flashes, obviously very skillfully placed. The numerous elegant ghost town portraits staggered my curiosity about the photographer who obviously had endless patience, and a fine sense of composition.

Berlin, NV. Founded in 1897 as a mining camp, it became a ghost town in 1947. Remains of mail coach stop, warehouse and ore-processing plant survive.

Now there’s a book of Berthold’s phenomenal images titled “Ghost Towns of the American West”, published by Harry N. Abrams. It’s 120 pages of wonderment with 80 color photos. “Hardcover is $29.95, an investment in visual pleasure”, says the publisher about this book. “Droves of treasure hunters raided the deserts and crags of the American West in the mid 19th century, hoping to make a fortune in gold, silver and copper. Of the thousands of mining towns that sprang up, most have disappeared, but a scant few remain as spooky reminders of dreams that failed.” (courtesy of Harry N. Abrams.)

“ Each year, visitors from around the world journey to see these ghost towns —some resembling Hollywood movie sets, complete with tumbleweed, howling breezes, and swinging saloon doors. Other ruins, accessible only by four-wheel-drive, beckon modern explorers to experience firsthand history frozen in time. Photographer Berthold Steinhilber sought out these phantom towns. He probed into the mysteries of deserted places like Bodie, CA, Gold Point, NV, and Steins, NM. Shooting at dusk, using long exposures, and a powerful headlamp, Berthold created an eerie ambiance, capturing the towns’ secrets for all to see.

Gold Point, NV. Post Office counter including old typewriter. The Post Office closed in 1968. Berthhold’s skills with interiors are as remarkable as photos taken outdoors.

To my delight, before publication, I was given black-and-white photocopies of all the pages along with a slick 16-page brochure titled “Geisterstädte in Amerikas Westen.” Captions in it are also in German to promote a German edition, and on the back cover is an image of the three-story derelict former bank at Rhyolite, NV which I first shot in 4x5 black and white in 1954. Berthold’s more recent impression, gleaming in the late dusk-blue sky, is startling and gratifying.

	Rhyolite, NV. The Cook Bank was one once elegant with a marble floor, mahogany counters and electric lights.

Since then, I’ve been in touch with Berthold in Stuttgart by e-mail for this story. From concise data about his photography he offered in idiomatic English, and from information in the book, I discovered how these unique images were made, technically and emotionally. First, some background data.

After high school, says Hans-Michael Koetzle, a well known German photography writer in the book, Berthold “underwent classical training in photography for a time in the Rubold advertising studio.” There he learned techniques of handling light, and in 1993 he studied with a professor in Dortmund, and later did “reporting as-signments” in Slovenia and Romania. Berthold is still inspired, says Mr. Koetzel, “by the ideal of classical photojournalism,” and he has been particularly drawn to Eugene Atget. In 1996-1997 Berthold also studied at a small photo school in Falmouth, England where he experimented with lighting rooms by flashlight. To take his technique outdoors he began using a large converted ship spotlight, powered by a car battery, with which he painted medieval churches in various states of ruin.

Berhtold says, “I started with my large headlamp technique experimenting first on small objects, then interiors and eventually, architecture and landscapes. I didn’t really discover how to light and shoot all at once, it was progressive. I did research with different kinds of light sources and found it quite interesting to use a ‘moving’ light. By that time I had learned a lot about the way light works and what kind of atmospheric effects you can achieve.”

During photography in Great Britain, Berthold learned to deal with orange street lights. He explains, “If these lights are very close to an abbey, for instance, you can get an orange-tinted sky. If there’s a reflection of city lights in the clouds, you get a more greenish sky. The sky turns brighter and greener when you prolong exposure time.”

Berthold began shooting large scale outdoor subjects with a brand-name 4x5 camera that he discovered was not steady enough for exposures up to two hours, and many photographs were spoiled when a little bit of wind caused blurred pictures. Today he uses a 4x5 Silvestri, and a Mamiya RZ-67. He says, “My large format lenses by Schneider Kreuznach are the 90mm XL, the 58mm XL and the 135mm. On the Mamiya I use 50mm, 110mm and 180mm. My films are from Kodak, their EPY transparency film and their Portra 100T Negative film.”

	Leadville, CO. A 1906 class B-4-R locomotive of the Colorado & Southern Railway stands next to the old Leadville depot.

He explained his approach to light painting. “Usually I set up the camera during the day and take time to refine my viewpoint. At the end of the day, during twilight, there is a period called the blue hour. That is when I begin to take the photograph. I choose an aper-ture by experience, usually between f/8 and f/16, open the shutters and begin to illuminate the building. At all my Western American locations there was no other light except the weakening skylight and my single, specially prepared headlight. It is powered by a strong automobile battery and has a special bulb which matches the film’s Kelvin temperature. “I usually work with both the 4x5 and the RZ-67 so I have a chance to make two different shots, which is comforting when exposure time is an hour or longer.

“ It’s a great advantage to use 12-volt power because there is no electricity at the locations, and I don’t have to drag a noisy generator to disturb any peaceful ghosts. I carry several car batteries in my van to make long exposures feasible. After the camera shutter is set on time, I start to light every single part of a building with the headlight.” He sees light sweeping over the subject, as he “paints” a picture, and he can sense how his “brush strokes” build up on film.

Berthold continued, “If you make a mistake, and parts are too light or dark, the whole photograph is spoiled. I’ve had so much experience with this technique using ISO 100 film that I don’t measure the exposure time or the length of time I make a light stroke across parts of a building. It’s become instinctive with experience. I usually ‘paint’ a certain part of a building several times, like painting a picture. For a brighter scene, I prolong the illumination time. The headlight I use weighs about 1.8 pounds and is handheld.”

Some of Berthold’s photographs of English monasteries had previously been shown by Smithsonian magazine, and reader response was so positive that Smithsonian editors asked Berthold to cover an American subject. He chose Western ghost towns. “To him,” says Mr. Koetzel, “they stand as embodiments of the American dream.” For six weeks Berthold traveled with his two cameras and a renewed knowledge of American history. He roamed California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. Mr. Koetzel adds, “He would prowl around a location during the day, then in the early evening, against a deep blue sky, create pictures that had already taken shape in his mind.”

For me, trying to imagine setting up on location and then shooting just one long-exposure color image from each camera gives me the shivers, but Mr. Koezel says, “Berthold rarely needed a second try…he is fully at home in his craft. He does admit that illuminating trees is very difficult because he says, ‘they don’t reflect well. For them you sometimes need to triple the exposure time.’…What intrigues him is the business of using his technique to let the scenes speak for themselves.” Berthold’s images of ghost towns tell stories, says Mr. Koetzel, “that take place on the boundaries between day and night, life and death, reality and artificiality.”

Berthold told me, “I think this technique is appropriate for a lot of subjects, and it worked quite well with ghost towns. Most importantly, you can create a certain ambiance and the atmosphere is not pure chance. Moods can be created with light in an active way, so you can have a personal influence on the photographs without depending on outside conditions.”

In Hans-Michael Koetzle’s essay he says that when photography was invented, people had the quaint notion that the sun “drew” pictures on a surface such as a copper plate covered with a film of silver. Then John William Herschel came up with photography, which means “writing with light,” and describes Berthold’s subtle large-light manipulation. Koetzle feels that Berthold “is an artist wholly in tune with postmodern media practice—“who generates pictures not limited to conven-tional systems.

Photographs in Ghost Towns of the American West are laid out with plenty of white space and accompanying captions inform us about the towns, histories and structures. Many images are vivid echoes of rugged mining days, such as one describing Chemuing Mine, CA that reminds us that when gold or silver was discovered, a town grew up quickly, about 1860 for this mine. By 1938 gold reserves were exhausted and the former mine buildings, seen as skeletons in Berthold’s piercing pictures, are all that’s left to remind visitors of the exhausting labor of the mine workers.

In the book’s forward, movie director Wim Wenders sums up the visions that Berthold Steinhilber has created for our pleasure. He says, “that portraits of old things always seem to be photographs of their missing owners, longforgotten”, and adds “that Berthold’s images raise such questions, but they don’t attempt to answer them.” We can become involved with his glowing structures without having to evoke personal stories. We can focus on the present existence of these remnants that Berthold’s vision has interpreted for a new audience.

Lou Jacobs Jr. is the author of 25 how-to photography books, the latest of which, PHOTOGRAPHER’S LIGHTING HANDBOOK (Amherst Media was recently published. He has taught at UCLA and Brooks, is a longtime member of ASMP, and enjoys shooting stock during his travels in the U.S. and abroad.