Context of time
I decided to move away from ‘time’ in the sense of how an image is captured (shutter speeds), and the ephemeral aesthetic, and move on to time as subject matter. I felt that this would allow me to explore an entirely different, more meaningful approach to my subject.
My aim is to capture a narrative around derelict and abandoned buildings. These spaces are exciting places to me. There are often stories associated with the buildings as to why they were left abandoned. Also, there is a sense of thrill exploring these potentially hazardous spaces. The potential for the project is exiting to me because it would be entirely different to anything else I have done this far. I wouldn’t have to organise participants in my shoot and I wouldn’t require assistance (like was required for throwing the powder in the dust shoots) and each shoot would be entirely different due to the unexpectedness of different locations. Each shoot would be alien to me and my photos would be captured as I explored each location. Allowing the audience of my work to experience and come along with me as I discover what time has done to these locations.
My work will differ from other photographers who capture similar work because I will focus more on my journey around a location to highlight how, when left to time, a location becomes desolate. I will also try to source as much history on each location to give my audience a real sense of perspective on how much each location has changed.
Flexlands
Left to time was an experimental investigation into buildings that have been abandoned. I decided to visit a small girls school called “Flexlands School”. I was inspired to investigate once thriving locations by the photographer Pablo Iglesias Maurer, He investigates and explores buildings, then compares them to how they are today and how they once were. He has explored a very wide variety of buildings from football stadiums, churches and public swimming pools. However Maurer prefers to present his images in a raw and unedited format, whereas i personally feel that my images can be dramatically enhanced by adjusting the colours and light levels in lightroom (See Journal for more information on my editing style for this shoot)
The school was for girls aged 3-11, The school was opened for 70 years before it was closed down in 2005.
Here is the only image I could find of the school before it went derelict
Finding the exact location of the school was challenging because there was no exact address listed for the school.
Here are the images I captured walking around the school. I walked from room to room trying to capture as much as I could to give the sense of someone going about their normal business in what once was an extremely busy school, now left empty and hauntingly quiet. Its strange how such a buzzing place can be reduced to an empty shell.
I choice far more images than usual to edit due to the fact I was so happy with the creepy and forgotten feeling of these images, So I felt it would be best to edit a large number of images then select a few finals
I noticed that two of my images were extremely similar just from a slightly different perspective, so I choice to combine the two images into a gif to see if it gave the images a different feel and character than if I just presented one of the images.
This gif gives a lot more perspective than an ordinary 2D image and really puts you in the scene. It takes two images of a dull boiler room and turns them into an experience.
I also filmed some aerial footage of the school with my dji mavic pro. I felt these clips would add more perspective to natural beauty of this place and highlight how nature has began to reclaim the building.
I filmed several clips then edited them together to make a short film on Adobe Premiere Pro. I edited the length of the individual clips, added some basic transitions and some royalty free music to add atmosphere to the areal footage.
After sifting through all of my edited images I selected 11 to use as final images as well as the gif and the film as my favourite work from this shoot
Time 