Ok, so here’s this Pictures from the week thing second time in a row, maybe I’ll keep it up.

So today I went to an abandoned factory built in the early 1900s, it was utilized by a plastics company until the late 80s maybe even the early 90s. It’s the third time I’ve been, second time in. However the first time in I only had BW film, so this was a new (and very cold) experience.

First though, I would like to say that I love natural light, period. I have nothing against studio lighting, sometimes its really really cool (see one of my modern favorites Patrick Hoelck). But there is just something about natural light, especially in the fall when all the foliage is out, and it gives the light this remarkable warm tint. I want nothing more than to do some kind of model shoot in this factory, however, snapping around inside is also pretty fun.

So on the note of natural light, one challenging thing about parts of the factory’s insides (mostly corners and the generator room) is that it was very dark. Seeing as my wide angle is a 3.5-5.6 I was having some difficulty. I hated using a direct flash in this situation because it looked like crap, especially with the natural light present. Additionally the metal surfaces always gave overblown highlights or just a non-desirable finish. Then when you mix the flash with natural light you can tell very easily a flash was present, the coolness is unappealing and ruins the character of the subject by taking away the signature subtle warmness- however, after taking a few test shots I realized that a lot of the ceiling and ventilation ducts were rusted or discolored. So using the flash shooting straight up to bounce off the ceiling resulted in this very natural, organic and warm “rusty” light that perfectly complemented the existing available light. It was awesome, I just wish I had figured that out sooner because by that time my card was almost full, my batteries were almost dead and I couldn’t feel any of my fingers. Pushing the shutter button was an interesting situation.
Anyway, here are some of the resulting images, some more can be viewed on my flickr photostream.

A set from the Movie SAW anyone?

Fan (recreation of a BW shot)

Rubbish

Generator Room- I like the colors in this one.