Night photo fromtThe Hospital located at Fort Chaffee Arkansas, which has been abandoned for many years. The medical complex at Fort Chaffee opened on December 7, 1941 (Pearl Harbor Day). The medical complex itself is an enormous site with 128 buildings all held together by long hallways. The complex has its own exchange and theater. It even had its own four lane bowling alley, not to mention being a 1,595 bed hospital. (Greg Disch)

Night photo from the Hospital located at Fort Chaffee Arkansas, which has been abandoned for many years.

As part of my weekend long Night Photography Workshop last weekend, we did a night photo shoot at the abandoned hospital at Fort Chaffee.

The medical complex at Fort Chaffee opened on December 7, 1941 (Pearl Harbor Day). The medical complex itself is an enormous site with 128 buildings all held together by long hallways. The complex has its own exchange and theater. It even had its own four lane bowling alley, not to mention being a 1,595 bed hospital.

Since the hospital is abandoned there is no electricity, no lights, and everything is very dark.  This means that we had to supply the lights.  For these photos we placed a lantern inside the buildings to light the inside and allow the light to shine out from the broken out windows, buy ativan la bringing life back into the building.

To light the outside a technique called “light painting” was used.  A shutter speed of 2 to 30 seconds was set and then the outside of the buildings was painted with light from a flashlight.  The technique involves moving the light constantly so not to have any hot spots and to be able to direct the light to only the areas that you wish to have show in the photo.  Trial and error is the only way to work out the correct exposure and amount of light painting needed, and each photo will be a unique work of art.

Night photo fromtThe Hospital located at Fort Chaffee Arkansas, which has been abandoned for many years. The medical complex at Fort Chaffee opened on December 7, 1941 (Pearl Harbor Day). The medical complex itself is an enormous site with 128 buildings all held together by long hallways. The complex has its own exchange and theater. It even had its own four lane bowling alley, not to mention being a 1,595 bed hospital. (Greg Disch)

Night photo fromtThe Hospital located at Fort Chaffee Arkansas, which has been abandoned for many years. The medical complex at Fort Chaffee opened on December 7, 1941 (Pearl Harbor Day). The medical complex itself is an enormous site with 128 buildings all held together by long hallways. The complex has its own exchange and theater. It even had its own four lane bowling alley, not to mention being a 1,595 bed hospital. (Greg Disch)

For more photos from the abandoned Fort Chaffee Hospital  click here.

All the information in this post was believed to be accurate at the time it was published.  Please be sure to double check with the location before relying on this information as everything changes over time, especially hours, prices, and whether the location is still open.  

Great Places for Great Photos

 

Let me help you to find a great location for your next photography adventure.  I will list many lesser-known destinations, as well as the famous "Icon Locations" for photography.  I will provide photos (Lots of Photos), location information, consisting of what there is to photograph as well as other information about the destination.  I will give costs, maps, directions, contact information, and other essential information for a successful photo trip.  I will only post for locations that I have personally photographed to ensure a quality guide to great locations for photography. If you know of great places that are not posted, please send me the details, I may just decide that is a place I need to go!

 
 

Greg Disch is a freelance photographer located in Arkansas. Greg specializes in nature, scenic, wildlife, and other outdoor subjects in Arkansas and other areas of the country.  Most of the images on this site are available for sale as prints, personal use, or rights managed stock photos.

Greg offers both classroom instruction and in the field hands on photographic workshops. Classroom sessions are normally held in Fort Smith Arkansas, but arrangements can be made to bring a class to your group.

All classes and workshops have small class sizes designed to provide an optimum student to instructor ratio, where you can get the personal attention, you need.  Most classes and workshops are limited to a maximum of six participants and will be held with a minimum of only two.

If you are looking for a wonderful opportunity to get personal individual instruction, I do private workshops and classes at a location of your choice, whether doing a location photo shoot, coming to your home or business, traveling across the country on a road trip, or at my classroom.  This is a fantastic way to learn digital workflow and be sure that your computer equipment is properly configured for optimum performance.