urban exploration – Dutch goes the Photo!

Welcome to week 182 of the Tuesday Photo Challenge!

Last week’s theme of Tourism generated an incredible number of amazing entries! I came up with an idea for this week’s theme pretty quickly, but then struggled to find just the right image for it (I will have to shoot something for this idea). As often happens, when I start going through the archives, I find something that I just might want to treat in a different manner… That led me to the theme for this week: Back Catalog.

My challenge to you is to find an image in your back catalog that still grabs your attention and share it! Of course, if you want to re-interpret the image with what you have gained over the years, feel free to do so. Any kind of image is appropriate for this challenge! Let us know why this image still gets your attention!

Here’s a new interpretation of an old image…

In 2010, I was actively looking for dilapidated subjects to photograph and came across the old farm of the Westborough State Hospital, here in Massachusetts. This was a wonderful subject, as I captured a number of interesting images. In this image, we’re in the old stables. This shot is comprised of 5 different exposures ranging from -2 EV to +2 EV. In my original treatment, I leaned the image toward the feel of the interior of a ship, such as the Flying Dutchman. In the new version, I’m going more for the mystery of this location, keeping it simple and a bit muddy…

The full rules of this challenge are in TPC Guidelines, but here’s the tl;dr:

Write a post with an image for this week’s topic
Please tag your post with fpj-photo-challenge (if you’re not sure about how tags work, please check out this WordPress article about tagging posts)
Create a pingback link to this post, so that I can create a post showing all of the submissions over the week (note: pingbacks may not appear immediately, as my site is set up to require approval for linking to it; helps against previous bad experiences with spamming)
Have fun creating something new (or sharing something old)!!

Looking forward to seeing what you bring out of your back catalog!

Westboro_State_Farm_14E2305_6_7_8_9_tonemapped — Exit

Urban exploration aka urbex has become immensely popular over the past decade to the point that it is mainstream photography. When increases in processor power made HDR processing available to every photographer, dilapidated buildings could be made to look interesting in completely new ways.

Of course, I have been guilty of a little exploration myself, as I love wandering through old, abandoned sites and checking for some unique vista that speaks to me. When moving through a building, I let my mind wander and lose itself within the possibilities of transformation through fantasy.

Part of my process relies on visualization of the alternate spin that I can put on the image, so that viewers can feel themselves transported into an alternate reality. Allowing my imagination to roam free across the landscape of my mind is an enjoyable, stimulating aspect of photography, which is very much enabled by HDR processing, about which I will write more in a future post.

The site of this image was the farm for a state hospital; the structure has been razed since I captured this image. On the day that I captured this image, the outside light was extremely bright and harsh, giving enough light to get the great definition in the floor and walls.

We’re looking past the animal stalls toward an open door, a possible exit from the dark, stark area, where we find ourselves. Is it a safe exit, or will it lead into a dimensional trap/