Derelict.
“Derelict spaces have a strange power and fascination. They stir up strong memories and cause us to question our sense of the permanence of the built environment that surrounds and shapes us, and our ideas about utility, market values and heritage”
At the beginning of this project I struggled to gain a theme/topic to document. Juggling ideas of transport, and one from the set readings I had the idea to go into hospitals and picture the patients who appear normal on the exterior but on the interior they had lung cancer, or some other kind of internal disease, Similar to Fred Lonidiers piece, “The Health and Safety Game.” But as I walked down the main street in Portstewart I passed the Montague Arms a pub that I had eaten many of £5 carveries and played many games of pool in as a young teen had been boarded up. And I began to think similar to Lonidier in the idea that, “documentary photographers have converted violence and suffering into aesthetic objects” only in the context of buildings. A derelict building is a Non Educated Delinquents (NED’s)playground, the picture “Open Door” can display this idea, I found being in that room and seeing the damage allowed me to think of perhaps the family that once sat in that room, or the business that was once run from there and how un-inhabitance renders buildings as ‘destroyable’ to NED’s. Although, sounding very much like a hippy that vacant space has been sitting for dear knows how long, and has finally been swooped up for its inevitable demolition and soon to be new apartment block with stunning sea views, do we really need another apartment block in this already over developed town?
“It is the truth of American street photographs...that gives them their special artistic and psychological interest. Their style and their subject matter in a state of consonance, they randomly sample their subject matter. They show fragments, randomly set out. Arbitrarily cut off, with bizarre juxtapositions, and these epithets invite us to move from photograph to the culture and people in them.” (Beloff 1985:99) Instead of the culture and the people in them, my pictures I feel allow people to engage with what once could have been there, and who may have been sitting and what where they doing there in most of my pictures but especially ‘sitting arrangements’. ‘Seating arrangements’ is similar to Marina Rosler’s, “The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems”. I took her idea of picturing an area in my case a room, and instead of adding texts of words to describe who was there, I’m allowing the viewer to add their own texts about who has been there. In essence, forcing them to become active engagers with the photographs, forcing them to question the absent, but evidently, once present inhabitants of the room. “The photographs consistently pull us back to the streets”, I want the photographs I take to pull us back to the basics of the structure we are viewing, to convey misery and the dilapidated state of these places.
“Documentary testifies, finally, to the bravery or (dare we name it?) The manipulative ness and savvy of the photographer, who entered situations of physical danger, social restrictedness, human decay, or combinations of these and saved us the trouble”. This quote has quite possibly been the soul source of inspiration for my pictures. Walking through crumbling warehouses, and mouldy floored houses, walking up broken and burnt staircases, all to gain some pictures that some will partake in for a few moments and think nothing more about it, in essence, risking my physical health.
During the project I decided to semiologically juxtapose some things in to some images to see if I could evoke new meanings from the images. In very dense overgrown gardens I placed modern items like mobile phones and I-pods, but shooting a wide shot and the items only noticed under close scrutiny, which would be more subtle than the likes of ‘Banksy’ and his pieces. After capturing these images with the modern/old juxtaposition, i decided against using this idea any more as I felt that it would allow the viewer to question the entire photographs ability to be true, which I felt would be difficult considering the pictures depict very raw scenes that are clearly not staged.
‘Back Alley’
Down the back stairs, opposite the apartments is where I found this alley way...
I’ve walked past this alley way a thousand times in the last few years, but as I approached it I saw the burnt settee, and I knew that regardless of the rest of the alleys contents that the settee itself would be a good source for some pictures. It was the ‘ping-pong’, ricocheting from wall to wall idea with regards to the settee to the, wooden board to the, metal cage to the, police cone and finally to the calor gas tank. And for me the red ‘calor’ sign on the tank is the direct centre of the picture, lead to by the strong lines of the alley sides/walls.
‘Stairwell’
Though the half bricked up doorway, into the ground floor...
The light fitting in this shot is what made me take it. The light hangs there like a hanging puppet with no puppeteer. Choosing my composition in this shot I decided to have the upper stair case appear to lead onto the foreground roof. Photographing stairs, and the viewing them, our natural inclination would be to start at the bottom and follow the line up to the top. So this picture I feel has a good dynamic flow in it.
‘Open Door’
Up the ‘stairwell’ to the open door...
It took me about 35 setups and about 120 images to get a composition I felt worked best with the room and what it had to offer. Upon entering the room for the first time I remember feeling the room just oozing with potential for some great pictures. After the first shoot I returned to my computer to find myself suitable dissatisfied with the images, and upon arriving for the second shoot I found that people had been in the room since I had last been, bringing new and interesting compositions that had previously not been available aka the breeze block. Sadly, cropped slightly from the left to remove a ‘dead’ area boosted the overall feel of the picture, but lost some of the writings. A variety of leading lines, lead the viewer around the picture, the perpendicular angle of the door to the wall, the breeze block and the rafter along the roof lead you in a parallelogram shape around the picture. Visually a shallow picture, but with the writings on the wall the picture is injected with understanding of the inhabitant NED’s and applies another layer to the photograph, a textual layer, not there but my own accord but adding immensely to the overall feel of the picture.
‘Warm me up bitch, this things busted’
Opposite the open door...
I felt that the humour of the NED’s had displayed on the radiator was too good to pass up. I’d like to say that I had a better reason for taking this picture, and subsequently using it but unfortunately I do not.
‘Stairway’
Up to the cliff top car park, along the path, hop the wall, down past the water pipe spraying a fine mist across the garden to the rear of another derelict house...
The zigzag leading lines bring you further and further up the picture due to the angular steps and roofs of the shed and outhouse. With each property I found I decided to show the pictures in a linear fashion as I found them, and as they led onto other pictures within the house. What I found interesting about this property is from the front it bares no physical resemblance to that of a stereotypical derelict building. But from the back 90% of the windows being boarded up shows a contrast to the front. I choose this picture over the many others of the same part of the building because of the subtle blues in the non-boarded windows in contrast to the mono-tone/ dreary boards on the lower windows. I was disappointed when I got into the building to find that I could not access the to the stairs with the stain glass window pictured in this photo, which I feel would have been a great picture as a few panes of the window had been smashed. But the interior was split into a flat on the lower floor which I could access 2 additional flats above it.
‘Lavatory’
Under the stairs, in ‘stairway’, an outside lavatory...
I found the toilet by accident, waving my torch around to expose the roof under the shed and when I looked at the picture on my LCD display I noticed a toilet-like item under the door. The image I felt gained a new, deeper meaning once I found the toilet. The toilet, something that must be kept clean as it is seen as the 2nd dirtiest thing in your house. I found it interesting/ironic that it is surrounded by moss, and debris. I find the deep greens allow the white and wooden planks stand out more. And my torch highlighted the toilet enough, many previous attempts I had over used the torch to much and completely lost the toilet but in this one I feel it is just enough to highlight its existence but not scream it. The lead in lines from the grey piping in the bottom left lead us right to what is my intention to be the centre of the picture, the toilet.
‘Armchair Barricade’
Through the out-house door, in through the broken toilet window, passed the smashed shower doors, and into the hall to find the armchair barricade...
This picture was the first I took of the chair and I still feel it is the best. The torch light I shook quickly so as I did not get patches of light. The chair it seemed acted as a barricade to the bathroom through which I entered. When I look at the chair and how the light falls on it, it somehow brings the chair into its own. I find that the main question I think people will be asking themselves when they see this picture is why in the middle of the hall? But as I studied the room hall I found the answer, the smoke alarm. As I moved into the living room I found all the flats smoke alarms on a table all with the batteries disconnected.
‘Hoover’
Other side of the armchair barricade, the Hoover...
The Hoover struck me as being odd. Untouched by anyone tucked in behind the inner door, as if the owner was out, and would b returning to user it later perhaps. And the light spilling from the single bedroom opposite adds an eerie feel as if the room was in use by someone.
‘Seating Arrangements’
Main living room, past the armchair barricade...
This image, composition wise I feel flows with the light. The heavy shadows behind the chairs, exposing a path of light on the carpet leading our eye up to the table. I wanted to evoke the thoughts of who moved these seats here? Or perhaps how the room had been previously set out by the owners. I feel there is a sense that we are allowed to look but not touch or sit in the seats, like we are at a museum exhibition and there is a sign, “Please do NOT sit on the display chairs”.
‘Emergency Exit’
Two roundabouts before the University, Loughan Industrial Estate...
Driving to the Jet centre one afternoon for the afternoon showing, out of the corner of my eye I spot a huge skeleton of a warehouse. I drove up and took a look around. Within the grounds of the bare warehouse there were a few small workshops with people working in them. So I walked around the perimeter fence to see any weakness and I found a beautiful flap in the fence that I could fit through. Under the cover of darkness about half eleven I returned, through the gap in the fence and I was greeted by the emergency exit. I had hoped to get this shot in daylight but I didn’t want the workers in the workshops to know I had been there at night so the shot had to be taken at night. The irony with in this picture is probably its best character. I feel shooting with the tripod and using a long exposure has its advantages and disadvantages. Advantages, the light coming from right to left that highlights the door frame wouldn’t be there if I didn’t expose for 20”. Disadvantages, I lost any dynamics I could have received from sharp clouds, sure I could have ‘photoshopped’ in a great, dynamic cloudy sky in, but would the buildings frame still stand out like it does against the orange? For that reason I left it.
‘Skeleton’
Adjacent to the ‘emergency exit’...
This was the last picture I took for the project. And I love it. This time I have no doubts about the clouds moulding to the solid orange, I feel that it highlights the structures never changing-ness and the clouds ever changing-ness, which leads us to question how ourselves as mere humans are to survive the changes time brings with it. The subtle right to left lighting and the street light provide vital lighting to the inner foreground and to the frame of the warehouse.
I feel that I have produced a credible piece of work having kept my original visions and ideas in tact and experimenting with other ideas. The piece I feel can reflect that normal exteriors can hide horrible, dilapidated interiors, which is not too dissimilar to my original idea of the patients in the hospital only with buildings. I hope that this project will fill the users’ visual appetite, as there is a lot to take in, in each picture but I also hope to evoke inner feelings and realisations about the surrounding concrete jungle that we live in.
Bibliography.
HYPERLINK "http://www.thederelictsensation.com/" http://www.thederelictsensation.com/ 13/11/07 13:07
Wells, Liz, “Photography- A Critical Introduction, 2004, Routledge, London
Sekula Allan, “Dismal science: Photo works”, 1999, university of galleries of Illinois state University
Rosler, Martha, “In Around and Afterthoughts (on Documentary Photography), 2003, Routledge, London
HYPERLINK "http://www.thederelictsensation.com/" http://www.thederelictsensation.com/ 13/11/07 13:07
Wells, Liz, “Photography- A Critical Introduction, 2004, Routledge, London
Sekula Allan, “Dismal science: Photo works”, 1999, university of galleries of Illinois state University
Rosler, Martha, “In Around and Afterthoughts (on Documentary Photography),2003, Routledge, London
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