abandoned greenhouses - part 2

A follow up on my previous blog post about this location. I thought about this location a lot in the intervening years, but despite a desire to return at dusk, it took me 5 years to actually do it. I’m not sure what my excuse was, a mixture of waiting for the right conditions/timings, as well as good old fashioned procrastination.

A constant reminder was the album artwork for The Dealer by Foxing, which uses a photo taken by Juuso Westerlund as part of his golden boys series. Great album and photo, it’s atmospheric, and also unsettling.

This shot is from 2023, I happened to be nearby, but couldn’t get there before it got dark. It was pitch black when I arrived and I didn’t fancy going in by myself to have a walk around, so I shot this through the fence. Shame to only come away with one photo, but I was relieved to know the greenhouses were still there.

Then finally last year I actually made it back at dusk, had a good wander round inside, and managed to get the shots I had been thinking about for years. In case it all seemed to be going too smoothly,

my min flash refused to work when I arrived, and part of me thought it’s just not meant to be. Luckily my little back up flash had more than enough power for blue hour for these blue hour shots, and I came away with some photos I was happy with.

I thought about taking some longer exposures with the tripod - but apart from the fact I didn’t really want to hang there around longer than I needed to - there are no external light sources, so the photos would have just looked like daytime shots. I really like how the flash gives that extra contrast of the metal frames against the sky, especially the hooks that hang down, which do look a little creepy and sinister. Shooting handheld meant these were all wide open at f/2