Trying to find a suitable subject matter for the interior location brief proved to be more difficult than I envisaged! I think primarily because I'm used to doing most of my photography outdoors - landscape, cityscape, seascape etc. My initial idea was to photograph a ballet class. Imagine the scene - graceful and elegant little ballerina's in their pretty little tutus and ballet pumps, fluttering like butterflies, gliding effortlessly across the dance floor. Moving their delicate and dainty little limbs to the rhythm of the music. It wasn't long before images of Swan Lake and Black Swan started floating around in my head! If only my romantic notions had any resemblance to reality!
After contacting several dance company's I got an immediate response from one of them. Everything was arranged and I was set to photograph the class just before Xmas - it was the night of the College Xmas party. As non of my class mates were attending the party, I didn't feel as if I was missing out on much, and who wants to look like a Billy no mate anyway!
I turned up to the class and was greeted by the very lovely dance tutor I had been liaising with. The group of ladies were very co-operative and sometimes a little shy with a camera pointing at their faces. The only thing was, and it's probably my own fault for having unrealistic expectations, they were not dressed in the traditional ballet outfits. Of course they had ballet pumps on but not a tutu in sight. They were in a community hall, which of course looked nothing like a dance studio. I was a little disappointed as I was hoping to capture some beautiful abstract movements, shapes and lines with a background that complimented the energy of the dance. I did witness the ladies performing many arabesque and adagios but my images didn't quite come up to the fantasy I had created!
Using my tripod and slow shutter speed I tried to experiment with movement but the results didn't come out to my satisfaction. I haven't given up on the idea of capturing ballet dancers, and it's something I will re-visit at some point in the future, because knowing me, I never rest until I get what I really want.
This is more in line with what I had in mind, although I've probably got a long way to go before I can produce anything like this! - http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/gallery/2013/jan/16/royal-ballet-dancers-in-pictures?CMP=twt_gu#/?picture=402429924&index=7
After contacting several dance company's I got an immediate response from one of them. Everything was arranged and I was set to photograph the class just before Xmas - it was the night of the College Xmas party. As non of my class mates were attending the party, I didn't feel as if I was missing out on much, and who wants to look like a Billy no mate anyway!
I turned up to the class and was greeted by the very lovely dance tutor I had been liaising with. The group of ladies were very co-operative and sometimes a little shy with a camera pointing at their faces. The only thing was, and it's probably my own fault for having unrealistic expectations, they were not dressed in the traditional ballet outfits. Of course they had ballet pumps on but not a tutu in sight. They were in a community hall, which of course looked nothing like a dance studio. I was a little disappointed as I was hoping to capture some beautiful abstract movements, shapes and lines with a background that complimented the energy of the dance. I did witness the ladies performing many arabesque and adagios but my images didn't quite come up to the fantasy I had created!
Using my tripod and slow shutter speed I tried to experiment with movement but the results didn't come out to my satisfaction. I haven't given up on the idea of capturing ballet dancers, and it's something I will re-visit at some point in the future, because knowing me, I never rest until I get what I really want.
This is more in line with what I had in mind, although I've probably got a long way to go before I can produce anything like this! - http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/gallery/2013/jan/16/royal-ballet-dancers-in-pictures?CMP=twt_gu#/?picture=402429924&index=7
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| f3.2, 1/30th, ISO 200 |
When it comes to getting rid of images, my fingers are on that delete button faster than you can say 'cheese'!! it's mainly down to being quite self critical and always striving for perfection. But as someone once said 'never get rid of something and always re-visit' I have taken that advice and have re-visited some of my ballet images - looking back on them, they're not actually that bad and there are one or two I quite like.
This is my favourite as I managed to capture all of them as they jumped in sync and became airborne - a little bit of a decisive moment!
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| f3.2, 1/30th, ISO 200 |
There's something I like about this image that I can't quite put my finger on - maybe it's the way she's jumping up and almost leaping out of the frame. It probably breaks the rules of composition but her enthusiasm for the dance comes across really well.
Not fully satisfied with what I produced I moved onto something I was thinking of for a while. I recently started to develop an interest in urban exploration after looking at some great images produced by a friend, of an old derelict building near my home town. I asked a few photography colleagues for ideas of places to visit and some of them suggested a few mills and factories around Oldham/Saddleworth and Uppermill. I looked them up but they didn't really appeal to me - I didn't feel the interiors were interesting or exciting enough for me and needed something a bit more to get my teeth into.
In the meantime I started researching photographers for my interior location brief. I came across many urban explorers who passionately enjoyed taking photographs of old, abandoned buildings. However, there wasn't any famous or influential photographer who specialised in this subject matter, something I was a little surprised by.
Looking at Rensbergen's images I can see how he effortlessly manages to bring the abandoned factories, hospitals and theatres to life, drawing our attention to the stories behind the images. His images can challenge the viewer to question the role these neglected old structures play in the environmental and political arena.
Rensbergen's does a wonderful job of capturing all the finer details of these man made edifices and makes you feel a certain connection with his images. Looking at the images you feel a sense of sadness and lament but in their decomposing state, you get to have a glimpse of this hidden world, a world you wouldn't normally get to see.
I really like the images I have selected, mainly because of the excellent use of ambient lighting, framing and composition. I like the clarity of the images and how he manages to bring out the tiny little details and textures. I will be happy if I manage to recreate some images that come up to this standard.
An abandoned hospital in Italy, photographed by Henk Rensbergen and featured on his website, abandoned-places.com
One of the places suggested by one of my colleagues was Bailey Mill in Delph, an old cotton/textile mill. The latest report shows what a poor state this building is in at the moment. Reports from a few years ago show a lot of equipment and machinery but over the years the place has been wrecked and ransacked and not much remains other than a shell of a building. Although this would have been a fairly convenient and easy place for me to get to, I don't really like taking the easy way out!
Bailey Mill, Delph Oct 2012 -Report/photograph by Marsden1002
I browsed through various online forums, trying to find inspiration . . . and there it was! George Barnsley & Sons Ltd in Sheffield, a building that really caught my eye. Founded in 1836, it was a family run business, specialising in forge filing, supplying cutting tools for leather workers and shoe makers as well as manufacturing blades and butchers knives. Sadly, like many manufacturers in the UK, it fell into decline due to increasing cost of production and the expansion of the import market. The building reportedly closed around 2003.
After a little digging, it appeared many explorers have been to this magnificent building to try and capture some of the fascinating pieces of history left behind. Researching this place helped me to discover the unfamiliar, often very risky and very much hidden and captivating world of urban exploration. I intentionally didn't look at many images of this building as I wanted to capture my own vision rather than be influenced by what others had done in the past. I did look at the last report on this building, which made me feel like I had a challenge on my hands! taken by an experienced explorer, the photos were pretty good. Looking at his images fuelled my desire to try and photograph this historic building, at whatever cost and without sensibly assessing any risks involved! 
My first trip down to Sheffield to photograph this building didn't exactly prove to be very fruitful! I tried to find the exact location and relied on Google maps to help me get there. A week before Xmas, I spent a cold and windy afternoon in Sheffield, but no sign of George Barnsley! I did however take some nice (exterior!) shots and was quite pleased with them.
Determined not to give up, I wanted to be better prepared for my next trip down to Sheffield. So I registered on an urban explorers forum and made contact with some of the members to try and get a little bit more information to help me in my quest. Suffice to say, information wasn't easy to come by, and understandably so. Urban explorers are interested in the preservation and protection of these truly unique places, and the last thing they want is some random stranger to turn up with their own personal agenda and do something that might spoil it for everyone else. Nevertheless, to my surprise, my persistence and persuasive skills paid off!
From what I can understand, urban exploration is all about appreciating the history, architecture and the beauty of what lies within the decay and dereliction of these old buildings. For some it's all about stepping back in time to document and catalogue all the artefact's and be one of the last witnesses to these monumental structures, capturing some of the remnants of the forgotten past.
For me of course, the desire and determination to produce something a little different, that might arouse the viewers curiosity, superseded any fear, anxiety or reservations I might have had of falling from a great height! somehow my fear of heights literally went out of the window and I suddenly found myself quite excited at the prospect of capturing something special. Not knowing first of all whether I would get in and out of the place in one piece, secondly whether the place would live up to my expectations and thirdly, whether I would do justice to the images.
Armed with just my Canon 500D and my trusted 17-55mm 2.8 lens, I entered the building risking life and limb and getting wet and muddy in the process. But there was very little time to pay attention to how dirty my knees were getting! My heart was beating fast, still on a high from the rush of adrenalin!! It's probably one of the scariest if not riskiest things I've done in my life! yes, I've lived a boring life! Suddenly I felt like I had travelled to another time zone. What an extraordinary place, you just had to be there to truly appreciate all that it has to offer. So many rooms to explore, I was like a kid in candy store! I had trouble trying to decide which room to go in to first.
It was around 1pm and I didn’t want to lose any valuable time, as the light would be fading soon and I would find myself seriously compromising on quality of image. There was plenty of rooms with lots of windows and others with very few. This meant some of the rooms were glowing from the sun beams shining through, whereas others were quite dark. I knew doing in interior shoot without a flash and very little natural lighting would be quite a challenge - but then, who doesn't like a challenge! To correctly expose the images I would have to slow the shutter down and increase the ISO. Although having a tripod would have been a great help, given the constraints of entering the building, there was no way I could carry one in with me. So I relied on my steady hands, although I knew a certain level of noise would be unavoidable.
Three hours later I was on my way out, feeling like the cat who got the cream! Looking through my images I couldn't believe I had taken around 400 shots! I've not taken that many images in one go since the time I did my very first wedding a few years back. Over time I have learnt to become a little less trigger happy and quite selective of the shots I take. Whittling down to my final ten wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. With some valuable input from my friends and colleagues I managed to select what I believe to be the strongest ten.
But for now I'll go through the ones that nearly made it. The dead bird was one of the last things I noticed just before I was about to leave the building, and it was purely by accident. I was about to make my way down the stairs when I suddenly thought there was one part of the rooms upstairs I didn't venture into - how could I leave not knowing what I might find there. I ran back and noticed this dead bird in one of the cupboards - I couldn't understand why a bird would end up dying there as many of the windows were cracked or open so it wasn't because it just got trapped. Maybe it was injured and just couldn't make it out.
It has very much become part of the death and decay process along with the rest of things in the building. I do like this image quite a lot but I feel it just didn't quite fit in with the rest of the selection. There was quite high level of noise, as it was the end of the day and I had to work with very little light - I used ISO 800 and 1/15th shutter speed, which has resulted in some blurring of the image.
It has very much become part of the death and decay process along with the rest of things in the building. I do like this image quite a lot but I feel it just didn't quite fit in with the rest of the selection. There was quite high level of noise, as it was the end of the day and I had to work with very little light - I used ISO 800 and 1/15th shutter speed, which has resulted in some blurring of the image.
f2.8, 1/15th, ISO 800, 43mm
What I like about this image is the open cupboard doors, nicely lit up by the late afternoon sun coming in through the windows. However, I don't like the shadows on the left and feel far too much detail has been lost. There's also quite a bit of noise, having to use ISO 400.
2.8, 1/13th, ISO 400, 17mm
This is probably my least favourite image. Although the vibrant colours of the bricks and the paint shows up well, there's not enough going on in the image to grab and hold the viewers attention.
f2.8, 1/13th, ISO 400, 17mm
It was all the pipes and metalwork that attracted me to this part of the building. It was one of the out buildings and was very different from the rest of the buildings. I like the colours of the corroded rusty pipes set against the bluey green wall. There was very little light spilling through the cracks of the ceiling - hence the slow shutter speed and high ISO. I'm surprised I didn't have a lot more camera shake with this image at such a slow shutter speed. This image simply wasn't as strong as the rest.
f3.5, 1/8th, ISO 800, 17mm
MY FINAL TEN
f3.5, 1/15th, ISO 200, 17mm
This is one of the images that really stood out for me. The vibrant blue colour of this unit set against the dirty, messy floor provided a great contrast and added a lot of interest for the viewers. Doors wide open, cracked and peeling paint helped to add a lot of character to this image. I really love the way the light coming through the window catches the top of the drawers - shot from a low angle, it has a lovely leading line towards the window - this is exactly why this image is in my final ten. Luckily the sunlight helped me to keep my ISO down and with a slightly lower aperture I achieved a certain amount of shallow depth of field, which helped to isolate part of the image to keep in focus but still highlighting a good level of detail.
f2.8, 1/13th, ISO 800, 24mm
It didn't take me long to decide that this image should be included in my final ten. Wondering into a part of the building that resembled a kitchen, these precious little items were on a shelf in the corner. They were quite far away from the window with only a little ray of light falling on the wall above the tea set. How ironic to see a little tea set covered in dirt and grime but a tea pot still covered with a tea cosy. Makes you wonder about the lives of the workers in there, whether this place was a home from home for them.
f2.8, 1/15th, ISO 200, 17mm
This is one of the first rooms I went into on the ground floor and probably spent the most amount of time in. There's a lot going on in this room and I like way your eyes are drawn to the many little things scattered all over the floor. I was particularly curious about the colourful sheets of prints/drawings strewn all over the room - this leads nicely to my next image . . . .
f2.8, 1/20th, ISO 400, 23mm
This was taken in the same room. These prints weren't just on the floor but also stuffed inside the cabinet. I did quite a few close up shots of the prints with low aperture to get a bit of an abstract feel them. I didn't do too many close up/abstract shots and stuck to using wide angle on most of the images. Primarily because there's so much to observe in this place, I wanted to capture as much as I could and give the viewer an insight into what a truly fascinating place this is.
f4, 1/15th, ISO 400, 20mm
This is was one of the last few images going into my final ten. I wasn't too sure about it at first mainly because most of the other images were either very busy with lots of points of interest or had a clear focal point. This image at first looked to me like it was too empty - not a lot going on, until I noticed the golden rays of the sun shining on the ladder - without the ladder the image would have a looked little too bland but the ladder with the windows next to it is the highlight of the image. f4, 1/15th, ISO 400, 17mm
For someone who loves colours it was no surprise I was instantly drawn to this room. I have placed the units bang in the centre on purpose. I wanted to show how something so beautiful and colourful still stands tall, amongst the wreckage and destruction that surrounds it. If you don't look at the image long enough you might actually miss the fact that, strangely a chair stands on top of the cupboards - you might be thinking - why? when? who? we'll never know.
This room looked very much like an office - it had desks and chairs, a really old type writer and filing cabinets - papers it had plenty but most of it trailing across the floor. I can only guess everything was filed away as the owners left but one day along came some clever little vandal who thought it might be a good idea to throw them all over the floor.
f3.2, 1/15th, ISO 400, 17mm
This is one of my absolute favourite images. I really like the composition, but more than that I love the fact that there's so much in this room, you could come back to it time and time again and discover something new, something you may not have spotted the first time round. It makes you wonder what lies beyond those open doors - perhaps promises of more discoveries to be made. Even though there's so much going on, there's one thing that really makes this image - that's the poster of the bikini clad girl on the wall - like a window into the past, it gives you a little glimpse into the lives of the people who once worked in this building.
f2.8, 1/13th, ISO 100, 28mm
This was also an accidental discovery. This lamp shade was left on a table right next to the entrance of this room. Even though it was to my left as I entered the room, I actually didn't notice it until I was about to leave the room. Funnily this was the last shot I took in this room and this turned out to be best image I got from that room. Sometimes it takes a while to take in the mood and surroundings of a room and that's what happened with this - I'm so glad I did notice it because I believe this image has many stories to tell.
This again was one of the last images to go in my final ten. Looking back on it, it fits perfectly with the rest of the images. Like the others, I feel this image reveals more about the lives of the people who worked there than the work they did. I really like how different shades of red, brown and grey compliment each other. Beautifully leather bound, they look almost too valuable to be left out here.
f2.8, 1/25th, ISO 400, 17mm
I did very little post processing on my images and stuck to doing the bare minimum to give an accurate representation of what I captured. I had to use a little bit of fill light in order to show detail and use contrast and clarity to bring out the textures and colours. I think the lack of ambient light in some of the images helps to create mood and atmosphere in the images.
Being an aspiring photographer, I'm constantly evaluating and analysing my work to try and find my place and identity within this overcrowded photographic world. I no longer have that burning appetite to capture, what you may traditionally describe as a beautiful image. I consciously wanted to step away from what I always do best - photographing landscape/architecture/nature. The decision to photograph the shipwrecks and then George Barnsley, has enabled me to make significant progress on my photographic journey, and of course this is only the beginning. With my images I wanted to express my individuality rather than follow the crowd.
Through my images I was able to show some of the transformation, a man-made structure like George Barnsley goes through when abandoned and left to crumble. Facing daily battles with the elements and the odd intruder here and there. It's quite disheartening to see places like this loosing their purpose and reasons for existence. If it wasn't for the vibrant colours of the corrosion and decay, with beams of light spilling through the cracks of the ceiling and the broken windows, I wouldn't have had so many beautiful images, helping me to freeze a moment in time. I rather enjoyed stepping into this alien and often dangerous world of urban exlporation, so I may return!
