Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: N80 on December 22, 2016, 05:39:07 pm
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I have photographic fetish for subjects of industrial decay. It seems like its a fad these days. Old mills charge photographers admission to go in and take pictures. This image is from the powerhouse of Rock Hill Printing and Finishing. The city owns the property now. It is too dangerous to admit the public but the city manager gave me the keys and let me have a go at it. It was a few years ago with an outdated Nikon D-SLR. I want to go back with my D750 for the better high iso performance. Does this shot speak to anyone at all?
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Nice,
I'm a urbex fan. LuLa just published and article today on this topic. I also love visiting old factories, schools and institutions. Michale and I used to do this together sometimes. one of the more fun places to shoot is Silo City in Buffalo, NY.
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Nice shot. My only nit is that it looks like the scene is falling backwards--a very easy fix in PS.
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Nice shot. My only nit is that it looks like the scene is falling backwards--a very easy fix in PS.
Yep, it's pretty bad. I've never done perspective adjustments but I'll play with it.
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I share your fetish, George.
My local fix is at Boston's Waterworks Museum, which has three generations of water pumping stations on view, and which encourages photographers to visit, even with tripod.
Eric
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Here is another from the same facility:
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Nice shot. My only nit is that it looks like the scene is falling backwards--a very easy fix in PS.
I agree.
Maybe the intention is to induce vertigo - otherwise Lightroom also provides an easy fix these days.
Tony Jay
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Where's the seasonal spirit? The shot is perfectly nice with its real perspective and not a faux "correct"!
For me, the spìrit of these things requires black/white; colour makes pretty what is not. Not being pretty is part of the brutal reality of such places; perhaps most of them (photographs, drawings etc. of industrial areas) unavoidably leave out one important part of that brutalism: the friggin' noise! Anyone who has worked on an industrial shop floor will have mastered the acquired art of holding a conversation when the ambient noise has already deafened one with perhaps permanent hearing problems. That's why musicians usually write their best tunes when young; later, it's too many decibels too late.
Rob
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Where's the seasonal spirit? The shot is perfectly nice with its real perspective and not a faux "correct"!
To be honest, the place is huge and in the first shot the upward view was intended. In that room you did get a vertigo sort of feeling looking up with all the different geometries going on. I am not as distracted by lens distortion as some people are but I do understand how it can be off putting in an image like this. I could have lessened the effect by raising the camera up higher on the tripod and shot level.
For me, the spìrit of these things requires black/white;
Both of these were intended as B&W and were printed in B&W for a juried show along with some others from the series. They were all selected for the show but none of them won anything. So yes, I agree with the B&W sentiment.
colour makes pretty what is not.
Agreed. I posted these in color trying to touch on that paradox. Maybe it doesn't work. I'll post some more later, in B&W, that touch on the nitty gritty aspect of this place.
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Here is another from the same facility:
I know a photographer who'd give a helluva lot to have that second space and a fashion model! Just the right size of set to fit a full-length human beautifully... Aaaargh!
Rob
P.S. I see they got that mother in Milan. How quickly and easily they seem able to move.
P.P.S. Having written that about the second shot (your pic, not the fuzz's shots), I realise its an echo of my similar problems with landscape.
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First class wabi sabi, George. Love it. It's one of my favorite art forms.
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I think color has a lot to do with what makes the first photo compelling. Especially the colors in that particular photo.
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Yep, it's pretty bad. I've never done perspective adjustments but I'll play with it.
Very easy fix in LR, too.
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Very easy fix in LR, too.
Well, quite happily for me I am no longer an Adobe user. (Long, boring story.) I use CO now. It does have a distortion slider in the lens correction panel. For these images (jpegs, my bad) the lens correction options are grayed out. I know it is a non-supported lens anyway but I can't even get to the 'generic lens' option. So to correct this I'll have to do some more research into CO options or find a (cheap) app.
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I just brought it into camera raw and "uprighted" it. Problem is that you lose an awful lot of it on the sides. This is one situation where it pays to extend the framing beyond reason so you can correct it in post.
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I just brought it into camera raw and "uprighted" it. Problem is that you lose an awful lot of it on the sides. This is one situation where it pays to extend the framing beyond reason so you can correct it in post.
But then you get in trouble with the Crop Police. ;)
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P.S. I see they got that mother in Milan. How quickly and easily they seem able to move.
According to the NY Times he moved around quite freely throughout Europe and was in trouble with the law constantly. I'm all for humanitarian immigration policies. But I'm also of the opinion that those who seek and are given asylum should fall under a one-strike-and-you're out policy. You are in the host country out of sympathy and kindness and at the expense of that nation's citizens. Commit a crime, any crime, and out you go. Period. I just feel like if I got asylum I would be beholden to my host nation, deeply respectful of their culture and on my best behavior. Now, for those who are there undocumented, they should be treated as the criminals they are and deported immediately if not incarcerated or matriculated according to law if the humanitarian situation dictates such. This is not inhumane, it is common sense.
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Nice shots. I like the graphical nature of the first with all its intersecting lines.
I rarely get a chance to shoot anything like this because I live in a rural area that's never had any factories to speak of. There is some great "rural decay" but the shapes are all softer and the structures are generally 100+ years old these days. It would be fun to explore something like this one day on my my travels to somewhere industrial. The big challenge will be access, I imagine.
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I was reading an interview with some trendy, successful young photographer. I don't remember who or where. But he made a comment about how passe and cliched it had become to shoot old abandoned houses, etc. At first it stung a little because I like shooting that sort of thing as well and yes, it had become a fad. But reflecting on this later two things occurred to me, first, what an ass he was and second, why would this sort of subject matter be any more passe than any other? I don't think anyone ever says that about portraits. Yes, something can be overdone and something can be done poorly, but to disparage the subject matter, I think, was unnecessary. I think that images of things that people have made, used, lived in, made their livings in and then discarded can say so much about people in the same way a portrait can say something about a person.
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According to the NY Times he moved around quite freely throughout Europe and was in trouble with the law constantly. I'm all for humanitarian immigration policies. But I'm also of the opinion that those who seek and are given asylum should fall under a one-strike-and-you're out policy. You are in the host country out of sympathy and kindness and at the expense of that nation's citizens. Commit a crime, any crime, and out you go. Period. I just feel like if I got asylum I would be beholden to my host nation, deeply respectful of their culture and on my best behavior. Now, for those who are there undocumented, they should be treated as the criminals they are and deported immediately if not incarcerated or matriculated according to law if the humanitarian situation dictates such. This is not inhumane, it is common sense.
Italy tried to deport him twice and failed; German tried too, once, and failed for the same reason: Tunisia wouldn't come up with the paperwork to accept him back. In Germany's case, they did after he'd escaped!
Accepting the mores of the host country, by decree if not volutarily, is too much common sense to stand a chance: that's why we have ghettos all over the place and radical preachers flourish. Preachers aside, it's what birthed the Mafia in the US. Isolation within the host country is a fantastic captive audience for anything. That whirlwind is being reaped.
Rob
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That whirlwind is being reaped.
Rob
Indeed.
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In light of the purely coincidental Historic Industrial Mill article here at LuLa, which I thoroughly enjoyed and was inspired by, I thought I'd mention a few things about the mill in the pictures I've posted. It was officially known as Rock Hill Printing and Finishing but is known by the locals as the "bleachery" and was a major employer in its day. It was absolutely massive extending three or four blocks along the railroad tracks right in the middle of town. The bulk of it recently burned (vandalism) and then bulldozed. All that remains is a warehouse or two on one end (which are still in use as a shipping facility) and the power house and water treatment facility at the other end. That is where my pictures where taken. Both are nearly in ruins. They are wet, dark and potentially dangerous inside. The amazing thing is is that the mill did not depend on the local utilities at all. Trains delivered coal which fired the huge furnaces in the powerhouse to produce steam which ran much of the equipment as far as I can tell. I also found and photographed the remains of several steam turbines which were clearly used to turn generators to produce electricity. One is pictured below. Water was pumped in from the river, which was not close by, and treated in the water treatment facility for all factory uses including steam. Waste water was treated again and released. At one point I became so captivated by figuring out the whole power and water process that I stopped taking pictures as I followed the path of the cool through the facility, into the furnaces/boilers, out to the mill and into the turbines.
The city hopes to one day convert what remains into a retail/restaurant facility. Having crawled over every inch of it all I can say is that it will be incredibly expensive just to get all the machinery and pipes out. I hope to talk to the city manager again soon because I'd really like to go back in with my D750 which will be much more suited to the task than my old D200.
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George, don't knock your old D200: I use mine far more than I do its younger sister, my D700, despite knowing the latter has better stuff inside it (I am told). I think the love for the older girl is because of the way she converts my FF lenses... She also fits my moods better, I think. Like all love, it really defies and defeats analysis.
At the back of my mid there's also the idea that if I get mugged, then I'm losing something less valuable, though in absolute terms, I think the new D200 cost me more than did the new D700. But maybe I should abandon the fear: a mugging would probably give me my third heart attack anyway, so what difference would which camera make?
;-)
Rob C
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My D200 remains my favorite camera ever. It was the first and only camera so far that met every need I had when it came out (obviously needs and desires vary). At the time I felt like it lacked nothing. It was my first digital camera. I used it as my primary body for TEN YEARS! So far the D750 exceeds the D200 in almost every way but one: The D750 feels cheap in my hands even with an L-bracket on it. The D200 feels substantial and robust. So....if you get mugged and that mugging is going to give you a heart attack anyway....then you have nothing to lose....so use the D200 as a weapon....it will probably incapacitate your attacker and still function properly afterward. ;)
Merry Christmas.
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My D200 remains my favorite camera ever. It was the first and only camera so far that met every need I had when it came out (obviously needs and desires vary). At the time I felt like it lacked nothing. It was my first digital camera. I used it as my primary body for TEN YEARS! So far the D750 exceeds the D200 in almost every way but one: The D750 feels cheap in my hands even with an L-bracket on it. The D200 feels substantial and robust. So....if you get mugged and that mugging is going to give you a heart attack anyway....then you have nothing to lose....so use the D200 as a weapon....it will probably incapacitate your attacker and still function properly afterward. ;)
Merry Christmas.
Sound advice, George, I shall remember that!
I only ever had two digital cameras - the two I mentioned.
Season's best to you!
Rob C
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Keep it up! Maybe try cropping off a bit on the right side of the frame? +1