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Old production hall at RDM

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
This is an old production hall at RDM (Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij). It will be demolished in February 2012. The members of the Urban Photo Collective were there just in time to document it before it disappears forever.

Please see here for a zoomify version of the image:
http://cem.usakligil.com/set/z_f49993.html

C&C is welcome, as usual.






PS: This was a pano stitch from 15 tiles (3 rows and 5 columns). The lens was TS-E 24mm in portrait stand, 50% overlap, rotated around the non-parallax point using the Really Right Stuff multi-row pano setup. The projection is rectilinear, fov of the crop is around 130 degrees in both directions (with a slight compression at the outer limits). The tiles were exposure bracketed (6-15 brackets depending on the tile). Tone mapping by SNS-HDR.
 
Hi Cem, I am envious of you for having this incredible opportunity. A tip of the hat to whoever at the Urban Photo Collective had the foresight to organize the photo op.

You certainly did justice to the place with this pano stitch and HDR treatment. I imagine your PC was kicking out some serious heat during the processing as 15 tiles at 6 to 15 exposures each is a lot of data. I've been drooling over the RRS pano head for quite a while. One of these days...

The zoomify version is open at another browser tab as I type, and it is a treat to explore. The two bays have overhead cranes, so whatever was manufactured/assembled there had to be heavy. Also noticed what appeared to be remnants of exhaust ducting which suggests painting, welding, or burning of steel may have been involved in the operations. I hope Doug has a moment to explore the big version as he will probably notice details many of us might miss.

Thank you for sharing this gem!

Tom
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Hi Jerome, Tom,

Thanks for looking and commenting.

Hi Cem, I am envious of you for having this incredible opportunity. A tip of the hat to whoever at the Urban Photo Collective had the foresight to organize the photo op.
Actually, the story is a nice one to tell, it is really up there with some other urbex stories. This is no public area and trespassers get arrested and can get to spend a night in the local police holding cell. RDM was a company (see the link I have provided in my previous post) which produced war ships, submarines, etc. So the security is quite tight, even now when the company has gone bankrupt many years ago. This guy from UPC, Erwin Verweij, has done his best to get us into this location. He has made many phone calls and got bounced around but finally he got to some manager who gave his permission for us to do the shoot. When we have arrived there, the fence was blocking the entrance so we (some 25 photographers in total) had to climb over/around it to get inside. Once there, it was as if we were kids in a candy store. Everybody has gone in all directions and I was in this production hall with about 10 others. You don't see them in the picture because I took multiple frames and edited them all out, lol. Anyway, I was just finished with shooting my pano and was about to move to my next target, when the security came down on us crashing the party. They said that we had to leave as we were trespassing. All our explanations about the phone calls and the verbal permissions were swept aside. We were kicked off the premises very quickly. It was a good laugh of course and it was all very urbex worthy, being chased by security.


...You certainly did justice to the place with this pano stitch and HDR treatment. I imagine your PC was kicking out some serious heat during the processing as 15 tiles at 6 to 15 exposures each is a lot of data. I've been drooling over the RRS pano head for quite a while. One of these days...
Yes indeed the processing took many hours. Also because I had more than 20 tiles, as some tiles were shot in double/triple in order to be able to remove the photographers who were infesting the place. I have ended up using the masking function in PT Assembler to get rid of them, lol.

...The zoomify version is open at another browser tab as I type, and it is a treat to explore. The two bays have overhead cranes, so whatever was manufactured/assembled there had to be heavy. Also noticed what appeared to be remnants of exhaust ducting which suggests painting, welding, or burning of steel may have been involved in the operations. I hope Doug has a moment to explore the big version as he will probably notice details many of us might miss.
I have created the zoomify version in order to let others also see the details of the place, which it deserves as a tribute. It was a production hall where they have produced war ships and the like, so there must have been a lot of heavy machinery in there in the heydays. I am sorry I could not shoot more. :(

Cheers,
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Hi Tom,

Just want to share an interesting insight with you.

...I have created the zoomify version in order to let others also see the details of the place, which it deserves as a tribute. ...
I have been creating zoomify versions of my interesting panos recently, as in this case. I do that so that people can take a look at the details, which cannot be seen in the web sized image. I have just consulted the visitor statistics of my website to see how many people have actually looked at the zoomify version of this one. Some 20 OPF members must have seen the picture (the actual number of views is 40 right now but most of it is myself and the revisits by others). Out of the 20, only 2 people have visited the zoomify version. This is certainly worth contemplating especially since creating the zoomify page takes effort and time on my part.

Thanks again for taking your precious time to look and to comment. :)
 
Hi Cem, I certainly appreciate you taking the effort to zoomify the RDM image. I would like to explore the others, but was not able to locate them at your website. My guess is that you make them viewable on a case by case basis, and one cannot simply navigate to them through your website interface. Of course, I may be overlooking something—seems to happen more and more often these days.

By the way, I retired from corporate life several weeks ago and so I have much more free time now than previously. Time is still precious, but as the years spin quickly by, it becomes so for different reasons.
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Hi Tom,

Congratulations with your retirement, I hope you will enjoy life even more now that you've got your freedom.

... I would like to explore the others, but was not able to locate them at your website. My guess is that you make them viewable on a case by case basis, and one cannot simply navigate to them through your website interface. ...
Spot on. I have indeed made them available on a case by case basis. See these two:
http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15211
http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14368
 
Hi Cem,

Thanks for the thoughts about the retirement!

Thank you also for the links to the other two zoomify images. The pano of Paris in dusk is absolutely beautiful, of course. I really enjoyed scrolling around the image of Antwerp harbor. There's so much detail to explore: the cooling stacks back toward the horizon with a wind turbine in the neighborhood; the port unloading infrastructure (those spherical chemical tanks with stairs winding around their sides might be a tempting subject); the roofed shelters marked Waagnatie with containers inside; the various buildings; the traffic on the water and on the streets; and much, much else.

I am looking forward to seeing more of these as they become available.
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
The making of...

While going through my archives I have come across these pictures of mine taken by RvdB. The first one was when I was busy setting up the camera and the Really Right Stuff pano gear to take the picture shared above. The second one is while making an exposure.



CU%20UPC0212.jpg



CU%20UPC0212-2.jpg

 

Michael Nagel

Well-known member
Cem,

somehow this slipped by and I did not notice until now - thanks for this great view.

I have to dig in my archive - I made some sort of documentation of the destruction of the old Agfa building in Munich (there is a new one now as I am talking about the medical division, Agfa-Gevaert).

Did you know that Karl Valentin collected old photos of Munich, especially of buildungs that no longer exist?

Best regards,
Michael
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Cem,

somehow this slipped by and I did not notice until now - thanks for this great view.

I have to dig in my archive - I made some sort of documentation of the destruction of the old Agfa building in Munich (there is a new one now as I am talking about the medical division, Agfa-Gevaert).

Did you know that Karl Valentin collected old photos of Munich, especially of buildungs that no longer exist?

Best regards,
Michael
Hi Michael,

Thanks for the link to Karl Valentin, I did not know that. I would like to see your photos of the Agfa building if you would please share them with us. :)
 

Michael Nagel

Well-known member
Hi Cem,

I am working on it - there are no such impressive shots in what I found in the archive, it is more showing the progress and the last, most dramatic part. There is a little movie as well.

Here are two more links to the book with collected photos by Karl Valentin, unfortunately all in German, but maybe there is a good tool for translation...

Best regards,
Michael
 
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