Art Photography.

Hello everyone, yet another late blog post, still, here I am.

This post is a mixture of black and white, partially coloured black and white and colour photos. It all fits loosely under the umbrella title of "Art Photography". I'm putting the black and white ones first. As always, if I don't  think an image needs any comment from me, or even a title, I will simply let the shot speak for itself.
Off we go then...

The first one is a photo of  the newly refurbished, Halifax Piece Hall. It dates from 1779, when it was built as a Cloth Hall for the trading of ‘pieces’ of cloth, (a 30 yard length of woven woollen fabric produced on a handloom). It has a lot of shops on the galleries with more to come, and a great number of events are planned for it. There is an entrance in the building to the new library, (very impressive) and it's adjacent to the Square Chapel Arts Centre, also Calderdale Industrial Museum. If anyone whats to learn more about the Piece Hall, or see what it looks like now follow the link below.

http://www.thepiecehall.co.uk/heritage

Halifax Piece Hall.

Balustrades, Peoples Park.

Peoples Park decorative urn.

The next five photos are from a disused dyeworks mill. I featured it here in a past post. 

  http://gordonartphotoand3dsci-fi.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/urban-exploration_19.html

Mill chimney from 

boilerhouse side.

Inside the mill.

Roof of boilerhouse.

Inside boilerhouse looking 

towards Old Lane.

Governor on a working 

steam traction engine.

York Arms (pub) Staircase, York.

Now for the colour shots. This is a very diverse collection of photos which appealed to me at the time and still do. The first is a Morris Dancer from the Sutton Masque border style Morris team, from Cambridgeshire. I took it at this year's Sowerby Bridge Rushbearing weekend. For more information on Sowerby Bridge Rushbearing, the link is below.

For some reason, the server can't find it by clicking the link. I've been to the site and it is there, just copy and paste it into your browser. 

http://www.rushbearing.com/  

Sutton Masque dancer.

Below is a wonderful cloudscape I took at Hunstanton in Norfolk. The light at the coast in Norfolk is wonderful. It's an artists and photographers paradise.

Hunstanton cloudscape.

I took the following photo on my phone a few days after I'd bought it. I was in Leeds, Yorkshire, when I saw this building. It has mirrored windows, so you are looking at a reflection of the building behind me as I took the shot. I thought it was a sensational but didn't have a camera, just my mobile. It was my first Smartphone, I didn't expect much from a phone camera (8MP in this case) but was very impressed with the result. 

The Bourse is an office and retail complex, it was sold for £8m to Paloma Real Estate Fund in 2016.

 

The Bourse, City of Leeds.

If you look very closely at most flowers, they are incredibly complex and beautiful. Quite a lot of the photographs I've taken of flowers, look like abstract art. The next two images are good examples of this.

Close-up of a nasturtium flower.

Centre of a begonia flower.

Below is a photo of a Ganoderma applanatum, or Artists Bracket fungi. It's a very common perennial bracket fungus. The underside is white and can be scratched with a sharp point to leave brown marks and so produce artistic images - hence the common name. It releases spores in their billions. The brown colour below it, is a dense brown dust of them. It's a very tough fungi, it you tap it, it sounds and feels like wood.

Ganoderma applanatum -

Artists Bracket fungi.

Canalside Tree.

Seedpods.

York Art Gallery entrance at night.

Walking round York one night, I spotted the shop window display below. It's quite surreal and far too good to miss taking a photo of.

Window Display. 

Or is this a Dragonfly?

Thanks for that Peter.

Soda bubbles in a plastic cup.

Rain drops on a Raft Spider's web.

Back to the dyehouse above for this next shot. I was inside the mill, looking back at the way I had climbed in.

Viewpoint.

Now for the final shot. Anne and I went to the Halifax Agricultural Show in August. it was very enjoyable, especially the showjumping sheep, which was fantastic. they were so well trained  and it was a LOT of fun.

As we were leaving, I spotted the two sheep below. It was another of those too good to miss photos. This photograph had to be either the opening of closing image. It's a nice finish to this post.

Ahhh...

I'm determined to get my next blog post mounted here in about 4 weeks. I already have an idea as to what it will contain. Well, until the next time, goodby.

Be kind to each other. 

Gordon.

Urban Exploration

NOTE: I added two more images at the end the day after I posted this entry, I forgot them yesterday.

Hello, This post is later than I intended, sorry. I've been busy with photographing the nature reserve (see the link to Cromwell Bottom on this page). As it's spring all the plants and insects burst in to life all of a sudden. I've had other things getting in my way as well, but I'll not bore you all with those.

Before I go any further, I'd like to say hello and thank you to all my visitors and to welcome those from outside of the UK. I notice there are several from the USA, and it looks as if I have a couple of regulars from the Ukraine, also Germany, France and Sweden. Sorry if I have forgotten to mention any of you, but thank you most sincerely for the interest and taking the time to look at my site.

This is quite a long post, I have so many photos of these sites I wanted to show you, this is only a small selection.

This post is about Urban Exploration. For those that don't know the phrase, it means visiting abandoned industrial sites and taking photographs. There are a lot of definitions on the Net and Urban Exploration sites, so take a look around. Abandoned industrial sites like this are getting harder to find in the UK, at least in my area of England. This is partly because land is at a premium, as soon as a (say) factory or mill closes down, property developers grab it for building. Also, they get fenced off to protect the public from the dangers inherent in run down, crumbling buildings. If you decide to take a look at a building like this, be warned, many of them are very dangerous. A GOOD torch, with fresh batteries is often vital too. It's best to go with experienced people on the first few trips, and be careful not to trespass, or at least don't get caught. Don't break in and enter buildings, just look for an open entrance and don't take anything away from them  with you either. Take nothing but pictures,  leave nothing but footprints.

OK, time for a few photos.

The first location is the disused Dye House Mill on old lane in Halifax. The National Grid Reference is:
SE 0860 2635 .

It was built 1852-58 as a a steam-powered integrated worsted mill. I believe it was the first fire proof mill ever built and had arched, cast iron roof trusses, which are still there. It is six stories high and 15 bays long. The polygonal tower at the back of the building was the toilet block. The mill had an engine room in it's own shed at the rear of the the building. In later years it became a dye house. It is a listed building, so can not be destroyed, but as with so many listed building it has been left to rot. A few years ago vandals set it on fire.
I only examined the ground floor for three very good reasons. 1) This building is dangerous and one person has already died in it. 2) I was on my own and no-one knew where I was that day. 3) I have to use a walking stick to get about with. I was not about to risk climbing six floors of a dodgy building, I'm not that stupid.

The photos:

The front of the mill

The back of the mill showing the toilet tower and engine room

Looking up the tower from the ground floor

Showing the ceiling supports and signs of fire damage

Iron ladder to basement  (at the front of the mill)

The next building was built in the late 1890s as Allen's Brick Works, in Hipperholm near Brighouse. Eventually, it became a plastics recycling factory.  It is a large site and I was there for three hours one January in the bitter cold and ice, taking photos. Like quite a few of these abandoned sites, it's quite eerie. After I'd been in the place for about two hours, I heard two voices talking some distance away. The works is on a public footpath, well away from the road. Urban explorers are always wary of being caught, even in places like this one. I went outside to see if I could spot the men I'd heard. I looked around and listened, I couldn't see them, but could still hear them. I went back inside and carried on exploring. Then I heard a chair being dragged across the floor in the office I had just left, next door. I went to look, the chair was there, but there was no one about. It is a very unnerving experience and not easy to explain. I have spoken to another person who had the same experience at that site and have read one or two disturbing reports on Urban Exploration web sites which made me go cold.

So now the photos of Allen Brick Works/ Plastic Recycling plant.

A small section of this sprawling site.

The ovens and controllers, along with most of the metal 

had been taken by scrap metal dealers the last time I was there.

These full drums of styrene had also gone 

when I went back a second time

A connecting passage. The corrugated iron roof 

had gone on my second visit. The scrap men

must have had a wonderful time.

Archimedes Screw.

Hot air conduits.

This was the wages office, it was a wonderful, 

graphic image. I was so pleased when I found this.

Now the last building in my post. It was also a brick works converted to a plastic recycling plant. The company who owned the Allen site, moved to Blackley, about one mile from where I live, near the M62 Motorway and took over this site. This one had been set on fire a few years ago, I could see the thick, black clouds of smoke, which burned for quite a long time. When plastic burns, it makes a lot of smoke and releases toxic fumes, The fire brigade must have had a hard time with it. They had dragged many sacks of plastic chippings away from the fire, some were partly burned. The colours were very bright and were ready made abstract art photos. I took several, some all blues, some red, or white, some mixed colours. I've included a red one as an example. This year, the site was pulled down and a lot of expensive looking houses built there. I'm so glad I got the photos first. In one or two of these, you can clearly see how dangerous the place could be, with large sections of roof falling in sometimes.

The main buildings, the entrance was at the front
left of the photo. A large red brick, square chimney was
about thiry meters inside the grounds.

 Plastic chipping storage bays.

Storage bays.

Part of a huge pile of "dead" plastic chairs.

It lookes like a grand piano to me.

Cave in.

Another view of the storage bays.

Rear veiw of some of the buildings.

Nature fighting back.

Below are the two extra images I said I'd include which looked like ready made abstracts. I remebered at 4 a.m. this morning. One was the red plasic chips I mentioned in the text. For good measure, I've added a blue one as well.

Afterglow.

Blue Landscape.

So, thats all folks. My next post in a few weeks will be on Post Industrial Art. This is where I've taken photos like the ones in this post, then I've manipulated them in Photoshop, to give them a new life.

Keep popping back, and please, please, if you like the post, leave a comment for me or I'll start to feel neglected. *smile*

Until next time, be safe and be kind to each other. Gordon

 

19 Photos of Found Art, Photography, Abstract Art, Modern Art., Post Industrial Art.

Hi once again. Welcome my Found Art post. I was going to put this one up a week or two ago, but I have had very serious computer problems. Three of my four PCs stopping working within a few days of each other. It's been a frustrating, expensive time. I'm still having problems, my scanner has died. Ah well never mind, on with the show.

I mentioned quite a while ago in another post, that the whole point of Found Art photography, as far as I am concerned, is that I do NOTHING to the subject matter. I do no arranging or repositioning of any components. Apart from adjusting the levels and contrast in Photoshop, they are just as I find them. It's amazing what you can find if you keep your eyes open and view everything with an open mind.

There is quite a lot of crossover in the categories of this sort of artwork; One could take a photo of a small part of a tree and file it under Natural History, or Abstract Art. A photo taken in a disused factory could be placed in several categories; Urban Exploration, Found Art, Post Industrial Art or Abstract Art.  It all depends on how you chose to present the image, or on what the project you are working on at the time. This is what I meant by keeping an open mind. Try to examine everything you see from as many viewpoints as possible.

O.K. Now for the photos. A note about the titles: I was told by those artists who trained me, that a good title will sell work and a boring, mundane one will put people off. At the time, I had the oppinion that the art should sell itself. I still think that, but I have seen the truth of what I was told too many times to ignore it.

The shot below is a close up of a rubbish skip which had been on fire and the paint badly scratched. This skip yielded quite a few amazing, ready made abstract paintings.

Rust Fern #2

I was in the city of Leeds, walking under a railway bridge. In the wall across the road are a set of small lights showing through a steel plate. It was a nice little art display put there to decorate a gloomy area. I took a photo of it. Looking at the result, I discovered that I had moved the camera a fraction due to the long exposure. The image was FAR better than I'd expected, all due to this happy accident. 

Discharge

I am a great admirer of the sculptor Sir Anthony Caro. The photograph below was taken in an abandoned plastic recycling factory and is just as I found it. It was perfect, a ready made Caro. The grass growing in the cracked concrete adds a wonderful extra dimension.

Caro Lines

The next one is a photograph of the cliff face in Old Hunstanton, Norfolk. It bears a strong resemblance the colour field art from the 1945-1950s. The title refers to the sticks of children's sweet rock found at the seaside. My favourite rock is still peppermint!

 

 Holiday Rock

A few years ago I became fascinated with the idea of rusty metal and flaked paint as a source of natural abstract art. I now have quite a collection of photos of this type. I have been pleasantly surprised at the positive reactions I received from people who have seem some of them There are quite a lot of artists on the Internet whth the same fascination.

Alt Luxor

Another of my favourite photographic subjects are doors and gates. I have a good selection of photos of these, some of which are truly amazing, making striking images on their own. The one below is a good example, demonstrating that less really can be more. This image is made more dynamic by taking the point of interest to one side, rather than showing the whole door.

Blue Set Square

One of my rust photos now. This was part of an iron shed rusting away in a field on the local moorland. The shed proved to be a great source of inspiration. The entire field was a gold mine of images, as the farmer had used it as a dumping ground for unwanted equipment. Again, it is remarkable how closely it resembles a certain style of art seen in galleries.

Broken Perception

I think I'll put two more rust shots in now. These are details taken from a railway bridge which carries a small road to the town I was born in almost 67 years ago. The street I was born in was pulled down a very long time ago. Our house then faced Percy Shaw's famous Roadstuds factory, where the "Catseye Roadstuds" set in the centre and edge of roads are made. http://www.percyshawcatseyes.com/  

Every Sunday afternoon in summer, he could be seen dressed in a cream coloured jacket and trousers and a straw hat, out in the field about 12 feet (6.4 metres) away from us, shooting rabbits for his tea. He had a television and crates of beer in every room and would invite his friends in to watch them.

Fractal Diptych

Trio Diptych

I took the following photo at the beach in Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk. The coast of the North Sea there is 1 mile (1.6 km) from the town. You can walk to it, but there is a narrow gauge railway to take you and to bring you back. Or, there is a horse drawn cart. This has to be the nicest way to travel, (in fine weather) that I have ever had the joy of riding in. It's such a peaceful, leisurely way to be carried. Life should be lived at this pace all the time.

Hill Fort

I like this next photo. I think we should have some of the walls around our drab modern towns painted this way to brighten things up. It was taken in the old plastics recycling factory, which had been Allens Brickworks from the 1890s before that.

Home Decorating

The next photo was taken in the plastics factory, but was actually the wall by the fireplace, in the wages office. I'm constanly surprised by the huge amount of wonderful photographs that can be taken if one keeps one's eyes open.

 Terraforming 2

This is yet another shot from the plastics factory. I've put five of them in this post, which demonstrates what a wonderful source of images it was. I was a little puzzled as to what had caused the orange marks of the floor here. Then I looked up. The roof was asbestos and steel. The steel had rusted at the point where rivets were inserted and rusty water had dripped to the floor over time, causing this lovely abstract image, and all ready to photograph!

Retrospective Poem

Now another detail from an old door. It was so good a shot, I'd have been stupid not to take it. Somethings just reach out to you and beg to be photographed.

Psychedelic Wheel

I don't want to tell you what this next one is. I feel it will remove the abstract nature of the thing for some people , (patteren for it's own sake) if I did.

Geomophic Landform

The following image is a little different from the rest. Although I haven't changed the actual subjects, I've turned it in to a triptych. Well, actually it's a double triptych, as the centre panel is a triptych already. 

 

War Wounds

This is the last of the shots from the plastics factory. I have a large number of photos from two disused plastics recycling plants. Both had been brickworks factories before and both were owned by the same plastics recycling company. Strangley enough, both sitse have also been on fire. As soon as I saw this image inside one of the buildings, I knew it was a winner.

Zen Koan

Here we have a detail from a decaying tree. Trees are something of a passion for me. They are the greatest manifestation of life on Earth and keep us supplied with oxygen. I've taken a great deal of tree photos, whole trees, close-up details, young saplins, majestic, fully grown ones and decaying ones. It would be possible to devote your whole life to photographing them. A close look at a tree trunk, decaying or in good health, often shows a set of faces in it; demons, people, animals... The one bleow had what I see as a demon in it. Take a look at my very first post for some other interesting tree shots.

Now for the last photo in the post, it's another rusty paint / natural abstract painting.

Topography #2

As always, I hope you've enjoyed these images I'm sahring with you. I hope that some of you have perhaps found inspiration to take your cameras or sketch pads and pencils or paints out on a walk and see what you can find. All you need to do is look from an unfamiliar angle or an expanded realisation that whatever an object is, it's never JUST one thing. Any object can be many things all at the same time.

My next post in a few weeks will be on Urban Exploration.

In the meantime, have fun. Gordon.