Industrial sites: Factories and more!

Inspired by Scott Kirkpatrick's classic industrial objects thread, I got to thinking about photos of industrial sites themselves. I'm not certain if this overlaps too much with current threads, but I'm confident Asher will put it where it should be if that's the case.

This is an old factory building on the shore of Lake Michigan in Muskegon. It was taken at dawn in November, 2009. Handheld, ISO 2000, f/6.3, 1/100.

This is a holding tower of some sort at the local Council's water treatment works. My partner works for the council and got me an 'in'. Unfortunately on the day it was very dull day and this was grey building, light grey sky – blech. So I was tried some effects and was quite pleased with this, I over sharpened it, made it high contrast, applied a Sketch/BasRelief filter, then high contrasted it again. I’m quite pleased with it.

Rachel: Here's a breathtaking project done in your neck of the woods. Two French photographers spent nearly five years assembling this body of work, titled Ruins of Detroit.

Odille, I like effects myself. Many photographers don't, though.

Ken, those are wonderful! I'm going to study those and try to figure out what makes them special. I've studied the book you recommended, and it applies the Gestalt laws of perception. I'm still struggling to get that "final" piece, though.

Electrical substation:


Main building


Transformer lines

Wurlitzer used to manufacture pianos and organs (Gee dad, it's a Wurlitzer!) years ago. Many of the gliders used during the D-day invasion were manufactured at this plant when it was geared up for the war effort in the 1940s. The piano plant in DeKalb, Illinois closed in the early 1970s, but the empty building remains.


Canon 5D converted to near IR.

Abandoned industrial sites are dangerous places for many reasons. Do most photographers gain access to them by knowing who to contact, or by simply trespassing and hoping for the best?

Tom Robbins said:

Abandoned industrial sites are dangerous places for many reasons. Do most photographers gain access to them by knowing who to contact, or by simply trespassing and hoping for the best?

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Don't ask, don't tell.

Trespassing....




On the 21 September 2001, ten days after 9/11, there was a big explosion in a fertilizer/chemical factory in Toulouse. The whole factory exploded, people died, some still alive were injured badly, to live with that forever. Many people thought about a terrorist attempt, the sound were to be heard for about 80 km around. I nearly had a part of a shop window chopping my arm (20 cm away). There was a pink cloud above all the city. Many weeks after, I went there...The now destroyed high school of chemistry (genie chimique) was there with the lab benches, the taps, no one has visited 'till the evacuation. It was like a ghost town. Now it has been knocked down and the school have been relocated.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZF_(factory)#Toulouse_chemical_factory_explosion

Sandrine, that is an interesting photo of an incredible event. I followed your Wikipedia link. The primary cause may never be known, and this must be a very bitter pill for everyone affected by the blast.

I have more industrial shots than I realized. These are shots of the old Borden Creamery building in a small town in Michigan. It's since been renovated and is now City Hall.



It's a shame the focus is so poor on the last shot.

Tom Robbins said:

Sandrine, that is an interesting photo of an incredible event. I followed your Wikipedia link. The primary cause may never be known, and this must be a very bitter pill for everyone affected by the blast.

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Thank you, It's a shame that it's overall out of focus...
I wasn't myself too much exposed, apart for the fear at the moment. The worst was, as I walked by to come home, all the windows were smashed all along for 3/4 km from the downtown were I was, to the place where I lived. At 1st, I thought of a gas explosion and gradually realised that it was impossible. The proximity with the 9/11 made everybody on their nerves...We merely thought we were safe...(but surely New York inhabitants thought they were safe as well) And even if it's probably some kind of irresponsibly from the factory owners, that feeling was quite unbearable. Of course the amount of losses (human and financial) was nothing to compare with, it just gave us a bitter taste.

Ken Tanaka said:

Rachel: Here's a breathtaking project done in your neck of the woods. Two French photographers spent nearly five years assembling this body of work, titled Ruins of Detroit.

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An amazing project. Also a book:

http://www.steidlville.com/books/1050-The-Ruins-of-Detroit-English-Edition.html

Artists Holding Up a Lantern to our society!

Rachel, Jerome, Sandrine, Edole, Tom and Scott who inspired this track,

Thanks for the pictures on buildings and the landscape. It's one thing to photograph abandoned decaying structures, it's another to bring this together with a thread that pulls powerfully at our hearts. This has been achieved collectively.

Ken Tanaka said:

Rachel: Here's a breathtaking project done in your neck of the woods. Two French photographers spent nearly five years assembling this body of work, titled Ruins of Detroit.

Click to expand...

Ken,

Your link again is succinct and important. Thanks! The artists hold a lantern up to show us our society. For folk looking for inspiration, look no further. One does not have to get a LF camera and try to reproduce Ansel Adams' work, photograph weddings at an angle or use Photomatix to get drama out of snapshots.


The New york Times has an article on flight figures from Detroit.

"Laying bare the country’s most startling example of modern urban collapse, census data on Tuesday showed that Detroit’s population had plunged by 25 percent over the last decade. It was dramatic testimony to the crumbling industrial base of the Midwest, black flight to the suburbs and the tentative future of what was once one of America’s most thriving cities." source​

To All,

I commend folks looking at the entire NY Times article and then the photographic work Ruins of Detroit, as Ken suggests. It shows the worth of the brain being engaged before even taking out the camera.

Asher

This has been a wonderful after dinner read, especially the brilliant photo essay by the two french men. I'm fascinated.

Rachel Foster said:

Inspired by Scott Kirkpatrick's classic industrial objects thread, I got to thinking about photos of industrial sites themselves. I'm not certain if this overlaps too much with current threads, but I'm confident Asher will put it where it should be if that's the case.

This is an old factory building on the shore of Lake Michigan in Muskegon. It was taken at dawn in November, 2009. Handheld, ISO 2000, f/6.3, 1/100.

Jacob Eliana: Factory​

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Looking at everything else, brings me back to this picture where there's a sense of some harmony between nature and the works of man. What's painful to see, however, in the ensuing images, is how fragile we and our works really are. Maybe that's part of our need to gather and protect works of art. These are the few things we might be able to save for the generations to follow.

Asher

Lovely comment, Asher. Thank you.