#come here brouw

[kitsproject4]

evaluation/final outcome/annotation 

For this project we had to produce a Photo book following one of four themes, either “Local”, “family”, “youth culture” or “then and now”. For this particular project i chose to do Local, although originally i did choose to do then and now but couldn’t really get a grasp of that title so change to Local. I did also want to take the theme of youth culture but felt that my photography over the past few years had already been bouncing off that theme, so i felt that i wanted to do something different and broaden my horizons as they say. 

I decided to follow the theme “Local’ due to the fact that i have recently moved to Nottingham so Nottingham and the surrounding areas are both new and very alien to me and have always lived in a quiet town, and found that this theme would be fun and also interesting as it would hold quite abit of exploration involved which i enjoyed. i also chose it due to the fact that I like the history of certain objects or subjects, also I want to show the forgotten aspects of areas around Nottingham I find it sad that something could have so much life behind it then just be forgotten. Going around some of these forgotten areas gave me a overwhelming Ora of melancholy to think that a matter of years ago it would have been buzzing with life or has so much rich history running through it that most people just tend to ignore or rub off as they potentially live in the present to much, which is a generally good philosophy to stand by in some sense. 

Doing this project also reminded me quite a bit of a exhibition i had seen recently in the Contemporary Art gallery called “Felt tip” by Elizabeth Price where she uses animate archives, exhume social histories, and to tell compelling Gothic tales. she uses abandoned coal mines in the north to show this which linked to my project also when going around the exhibition she talks about how buildings and us as human beings how we are perfectible hard drives for history and our own memory's and others that are around, which is kinda what abandoned buildings are like because they hold so much history to them like they are a damaged hard drive that cant be backed up. I also took inspiration from the likes of Jeff Brouws who is a  self taught documentary photographer who live in upstate new York, he was born in 1955 in San Francisco.  a self-taught artist. Pursuing photography since age 13, where he roamed the railroad and industrial corridors of the South Bay Peninsula, Brouws has compiled a visual survey of America’s evolving rural, urban and suburban cultural landscapes. Jeff's work consists of landscape and photographing abandoned petrol stations, i really like the framing of his image and the style so i tried to imitate this when photographing my images. I also took inspiration from a photographer called Cody Bratt who focuses on the comings of age and life i took inspiration from him because i liked his use of lines and the way he incorporates the rule of thirds and sunlight into his images, i dont think you could say that his work links to what i’ve done but i already new what i was doing so guess you could say i took inspiration from his style.

The first image was taken down near the train station i had to walk for quite a while to find this derelict building that was partly torn down i chose to photograph this building as i liked how it was standing and the building added to a nice bit of framing in the background i also thought everything lined up well and could make some good framing. For this image i used a tripod and had an F.s of  22 and a shutter speed of 3 and a iso of low 0.7 to allow a large depth of field and get the whole image in so it would be much clearer.

The second image was taken in Mapperly which is just outside of Nottingham, it was some abandoned house just on the corner of the street the graffiti and boarded up windows caught my attention so i decided to photograph it. at first i wasn't very happy with it and wasn't planning on using it but then i saw i guy heading down the hill so thought i would try and incorporate him into the photo, which made it a lot better and something else to it because im using a slow shutter speed. Once again im using a tripod with a F.s of 18, shutter speed of 2.5 and and ISO of low 0.7.

The third image was taken in Mapperly as well this was all going on while on the hunt for the abandoned railway tunnels that was like a needle in a haystack. I saw this old car dealer ship and as i drove past at a certain angle i reminded me of some of Jeff Brouws work so i thought i would be perfect, i chose this angle due to my inspiration and i loved the way the pillars were set up i thought it made great lighting. again i used a tripod with and F.s of 22 a shutter speed of 2.5 and a ISO of low 0.7. The fourth image was taken on the way to Clifton, im not sure what the building was but i get the vibe that it was a hospital due to the lay out of the building and the sheer size of it, when exploring it there also feels like theirs some sort of dark presence that lingers around the building i dont know whether it was that or because it is definitely being squatted in and you never no what you might encounter when venturing around an abandoned building.  For this image i had relatively similar settings i had an F.s of 18, shutter speed of 2.5 and a ISO of low 0.7 i stuck to pretty much the same setting for most of my images slightly changing them here and there.For the fith image i shot this on film a while back ago just for the fun of it because i though it was interesting seeing the building been torn down and was passing it every day noticing the change, i shot through the fence because i thought it made some nice framing and added to the image, i also like in this how the fence acts as the border of the image and shows you where it finishes. I cant Actually tell you what the settings of my camera were because i didnt take note of them, but i can kinda tell i think my aperture was somewhere between 3-4.5 with a shutter speed of 1/125 and the ISO being 400 as that’s the film i usually buy.the sixth/seventh/eighth image are all of the same area, i went to the Mapperly railway tunnels that are now abandoned that haven't really got much left to them was a very interesting area that was also quite spooky. Finding the tunnels was actually quite hard it was like a needle in a haystack just have spent about an hour walking around in circles and when i arrived i was quite disappointed as the tunnels had been blocked off by a railed fence so i had to make do with what was there and couldn't get the image i wanted. I tried to make a little story of the build up to the main focus by starting at the back and gradually leading up to it. In the meantime of doing that there was a car engine there that was real call kinda made me question what the hell it was doing there as its a bit of a strange place to just leave a rusting engine, it was real call to take a photo of because of the light shining on it and the rust the camera picked up a real cool contrast. I also really like how the trees are aligned makes some really nice natural lines.I feel that shooting derelict areas really links with the title of local due to there are so many of them surrounding Nottingham and theirs something quite sad yet beautiful about them as they have just been left there and holds so much history and the thought of the amount of people once wondering around getting on with they daily lives is quite a weird thought once you start thinking about it. they are a hub of rich history that is just being forgotten.