#145 – Shadows Of Change – Leigh Preston

I’ve been in and out of my local photographic society (or camera club as some call it) for several years. Unsurprisingly, the photos I enter into competitions are unlike anything anyone else puts in, and generally do quite well, although some judges just don’t get them. Fair enough, you either love or hate what I do. One comment that has popped up on more than one occasion is that my work is very similar to Leigh Preston’s. He’s quite well-known in amateur photographic circles, but I’d never seen him speak at our club or seen any of his work, and his website didn’t leave me any wiser.

So, I sought out his book, ‘Shadows Of Change’, which was published in 1993, and while now out of print, it’s still available second-hand. As I looked through the book, I realised that Leigh had been doing in the 1980′s exactly what I’ve been doing in the 2000′s and that’s photographing the changing industrial landscape. It’s odd as he even used similar compositions such as looking through broken windows, reflections in puddles, as well as night photography. And all in high contrast black and white. It’s almost like I’ve been unconsciously influenced by him without even seeing any of his photos!

Workman’s Hut, Stroud Station, Gloucestershire

What I have huge respect for is that Leigh is based in he south of england, and most of the photos are in the north, so finding the locations for these photographs must have been far harder than it is for me. Even more so when you consider that this was before the days of the internet, and so it was a case of using OS maps and turning up in an area to see if the territory matched the map (something I know is often not the case).

As I’ve said before, I often feel that what I’m doing is 20 – 30 years too late, and indeed, many of the scenes that Leigh has captured are now unrepeatable – the collieries are all but gone and many places have simply been demolished or tidied up. But back then, many of the places that I’ve photographed in the ast 5-10 years were just an unexceptional, regular part of the landscape. It’s only when things start to change, or when they’re abandoned or demolished do people start to notice them, and no longer take them for granted.

Pithead Winding Gear, Penalta, South Wales

Mill Gates and Cobbles, Chadderton, Greater Manchester

 

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#144 – Henk van Rensbergens Abandoned Places 2

After months waiting for the book to arrive (I ordered it in June), Amazon have finally delivered my copy of Henk van Rensbergens new book, Abandoned Places II. Ok, so the title lacks a bit of imagination, but in fairness Abandoned Places is the name of his website, and the photographs definitely don’t lack imagination, and are up to his usual high standard.

First thing I noticed is that the book is in portrait format, rather than the landscape format of the original book. Having done several Blurb book, I know that choosing the right format is a pain,unless you only ever take your photos one way, which of course no-one does. So whatever you choose will be a compromise. To that end, the landscape format photos, in this are all still in landscape format, but rotated through 90 degrees, so you have to rotate the book round every time you get to one. Slightly annoying, but I suppose it does mean that you can get more photos in the book that way than going with my alternative of double page spreads.  I criticised Sylvain Margaine’s Forbidden Places for having too many sites and too many photos, and looking through Abandoned Places II reinforces that view as the balance does seem about right, although there are one or two places I’d like to see more of – Forges de Clebecq for instance has only 4 photos, which given the size of the place, is a bit stingy.

Another difference is the change to gloss paper on the pages rather than matt. I think I prefer this, as it certainly feels better, and the photos appear to be a lot crisper, and the overall feeling is of a really good quality book. But enough of all that, what about the actual contents?

As for the locations, there’s a good mix, some places I’d seen before online, some totally new. Unlike myself, Henk explores all kinds of places – power stations, houses, industry, prisons, you name it, he’s been there. And while in the first book, the explores were all in Europe, predominantly France and Belgium, this time there’s a number of explores from America (Henk ‘s day job is a pilot – good way of getting to foreign explores!)

The photographs are accompanied by a brief introduction, and this has really gone up a notch from before, with some excellent descriptions of how he felt in these places, and his experiences, quite often hair raising  – his ‘guide’ to one location took a gun, something you wouldn’t do in the UK. Interesting also that some of the places Henk visits he has permission to do  so – see, even the best explorers sometimes have to ask!

As per the first book, it’s all top notch stuff. Bear in mind that the original Abandoned Places originally sold for about the same price, and now it’s out of print, you’re looking at £100 on Amazon to buy, so not only do I highly recommend this book if you’re a fan of the genre, I’d highly recommend you buy it soon!

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#114 – Book Review – Forbidden Places

There’s one or two urbex books being published by mainstream publishers (there’s an awful lot being self-published on Blurb), the most notable being the superb Abandoned Places by Henk van Rensbergen, which I posted a review of last year. Forbidden Places is very much in the same vein.

The book is by Sylvain Margaine, who runs the website www.forbidden-places.net which I highly recommend. The site is excellent, similar in format to my own, with photo galleries and extensive histories of the locations visited.

I must admit to being slightly disappointed by the book though. It’s a substantial thing, with over 250 pages and covers 40 sites across Europe and the USA .

My main issue is with the production and the editting – a lot of the colour photos look desaturated to just short of being monochrome, while on some pages there is a mix of colour, toned and monochrome. Sorry, that just doesn’t work in my opinion. In addition, the formatting of the text is just random. Finally, to my eyes, there’s too many sites covered. I’d like to have seen maybe 25 done really well as some of the sites aren’t really worthy of inclusion. By way of comparison, Abandoned Places has only 15 sites, but with at least 7 photos per site, and no more than 2 photos per page. While it would have been easy just to have done a clone of Abandoned Places, I really don’t think that whoever produced Forbidden Places has done themself any favours with the layout or structure of the book.

That’s the negatives out of the way, now the positives -  covering so many sites has resulted in a lot of variety – hospitals, asylums, steelworks, powerplants, hotels, railway stations, underground, and  the standard of photography varies from good to excellent.  My personal favourites are Clabecq Steelworks, Hudson River Hospital and Cane Hill, all huge sites that I’d love to have seen more of.

At £30, the price seems steep, but I managed to get it for £20 on Amazon. I’d have thought £25 is a more realistic price for it, buthaving said that you are getting a lot of book for the money.

In summary, I’d say it’s a good book and I’d recommend it to anyone interested in the genre, but when you put it side by side with Abandoned Places, it starts to look a bit thrown together, and that really is the responsibility of the publishers to have sorted that out before it went to press. But all credit to Sylvain for getting the book published!

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#93 Hans Steeneken’s ‘All Trains To Stop’

 An enjoyable trip to Peak Rail in Derbyshire didn’t produce any great photos, but a visit to their 2^nd hand book wagon did yield a couple of 50 pence gems. First up was ‘Steam’ by Ian Krause, whose work I’d seen in the classic Ian Allan ‘Steam Portfolio’. It’s mainly steam in action, and some very good ones as well, plus a few alternative views.

Of more significance was a book by Hans Steeneken called ‘All Trains To Stop’. Now I’d never heard of either the book nor the photographer before, but after picking it up and flicking through it, I was straight down to the till!

Steeneken was actually a professional photographer, working for the Dutch electricity board, and his photos are superb, both aesthetically and technically. He travelled Europe in the sixties and early seventies photographing the last days if steam in Britain, Germany, France and Spain, producing over 30000 images. This must have been some feat at the time, as 30000 images is a lot of film!

In some respects, his style is similar to the British progressive photographers of the 1960’s (lots of grime, atmospheric night and shed shots, drivers, panned shots of trains on the move, reflections, centre jour, etc) but it is the breadth and depth of the study which sets it apart from other books I have seen. In fact I’d go as far as saying that it’s the most definitive book of progressive railway photographs I’ve yet seen.

I struggled to choose just a few photos to scan and include, there really are so many excellent photos to choose from. Plenty of copies are available on ABE Books on the internet, it’s well worth taking a look at if you like alternative photos of steam railways.

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#78 Book Recommendation – Within The Frame

 

I read a lot, and the book I am currently reading is Within the Frame: The Journey of Photographic Vision by David DuChemin. David is a documentary photographer who works for humanitarian organisations across the world, which means his photographs have sod all in common with mine. However, his thoughts on creativity and vision absolutely hit the nail on the head, and have given me agreat insight into my own work, particularly the chapter ‘It’s About Vision’.  He writes, “Vision  is the beginning and end of photography. It’s the thing that moves you to pick up the camera, and it determines what you look at and what you see and what you do. It determines how you shoot and why. Without vision, the photographer perishes.”      

These words struck a chord with me. I’d heard David being interviewed on the Lensflare35 and Candid Frame podcasts, and he talked about how you should pursue your vision and not a style. What’s the difference? Vision is what you take pictures of, your message, what’s important to you, etc, while Style is the use of your lenses, compositions etc, that you use to render the image that communicates your vision. Does that make sense? I’m not sure I’ve explained it to well, but I would describe my style as contrasty black and white, wide angle, using strong foreground interest, framing and other compositions, to deliver my vision, which is documenting the sad decline of traditional manufacturing and mining industries in northern England, and their impact on the landscape. Or something like that.       

You really need to read the book to get a proper understanding of it, especially if you are interested in documentary photography, or even if you are looking at moving on from snapshots and onto doing something more substantial in any field of photography. I’ll leave you with another excerpt:       

“Vision is everything, and the photographic journey is about discovering your vision, allowing it to evolve, change, and find expression through your camera and the print. It is not something you find and come to terms with once and for all; it is something that changes and grows with you. The things that impassion you, that anger you, that stir you—they are part of your unique vision. It is about what you—unique among billions—find beautiful, ugly, right, wrong, or harmonious in this world. And as you experience life, your vision changes. The stories you want to tell, the things that resonate with you—they change and so does your vision. Finding and expressing your vision is a journey, not a destination.You can spend a lifetime chasing your vision, learning not only to see with more clarity, but to express that vision in stronger and stronger ways. It’s important to remember this because it fights against the discouragement that all artists inevitably face. The feeling that we’re seeing nothing new, have nothing to say, or have created our last good photograph. When that happens it’s helpful to remember that the journey isn’t over yet. As long as we’re alive and interacting with life, the world, and the people around us, we’ll have something to say. And as we learn and practice our craft, we’ll have stronger ways—better ways, even—of expressing it. ”

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#14 Review of Henk van Rensbergerns “Abandoned Places”

Although this book was only published in 2008, it is now out of print and copies were recently selling for £60+ on Amazon! I’m glad I got mine when I did and am kicking myself for not buying several copies now!!

The format of this book is superb, with each of the places visited having a one page write-up, and then several pages of (mostly) black and white photographs. As Henk is Belgian, the write up is in both Belgian (not sure which tongue) and English, and the write up is part history and part Henks experience of exploring the place.

 The photographs are of a very good standard – he’s not the best photographer of abandonment on the scene, but he’s up there with some of the best, and he’s had a lot of experience! He does have a good eye for detail and some of his compositions are well thought out. But they are very atmospheric and they help to convey a feel for the place. Whenever I explore somewhere, I always try to tell a little story, and I can see a similar style in Henks photographs.

Henk has been exploring for many years, and this book of photos is just a small selection of the places he’s been to.  He had one of the first websites of his photographs on the internet (Abandoned Places) and it was partly through reading this site that got me into exploration. He’s also had a number of exhibitions and I’ve heard that he’s going to do another book shortly. Not bad for someone whose day job is an airline pilot!

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