Interview with Photographer magazine

I was recently contacted by Photographer magazine of Ukraine (not a lot of point in clicking as it is in cyrillic) magainze and asked if i would do an article on Urbex and HDR, which i agreed to do.

As the magazine wont be in english print, unless the article gets syndicated to one of their sister magazines, I thought I would share the questions and answers here, and the pics that were requested for print.

(Please excuse the grammar in the questions, but obviously English is not their first language; how good is your Ukranian?)

1. Please tell us briefly how you have started plunging into the world of urban explorations in abandoned industrial zones and derelict areas and homes? Has something special happened to your life you so that you put so much of your efforts into experiments like this ? What are your primary inspirations stimulating you to go there ?

I happened into urban exploration by pure chance, I had been visiting a friend in Scotland who showed me a local urbex site in the course of a discussion, and the idea really struck a chord with me.  A couple of hours later were talking through abandoned rail tunnels under Glasgow, and that was me hooked, the next day we went to an abandoned priest college nearby and that just confirmed that this was something that held a huge interest for me.  I love the history of these places, the architecture and the weird and wonderful photographic opportunities they present.

2. Does photography plays the most motivating role for you to visit such places ? Or you just arrive there for many different reasons ? Do you prefer to be there alone or prefer to gather the group of enthusiasts ? What kind of thoughts are being provoked in such places ?

Photography is the main reason that I like to visit these places, they simply present shots and subject matter that can’t be found anywhere else. We tend to visit them with a few friends, for safety as much as anything else.  If you get hurt or attacked, you need a few friends to help out.  The thoughts provoked really are nothing other than what shots to take, im not a superstitious person and I don’t believe in ghosts etc, so its really all just about the picture.

3. Please tell how do you choose the abandoned places ? Do you visit areas which are only nearby from your home or you are ready sometimes to cross thousands of miles in order to get to the dreamed zone ?

I travel all over the place to get to a derelict site, from the top of the country to the bottom.  Later this year I am hoping to do some more international stuff such as around Berlin, some stuff in Paris but the big one I’m looking forward to will be Pripyat near Chernobyl in the Ukraine.

4. I think there are many kinds of industrial abandoned areas. You try to visit as many different places as possible (different factories, abandoned infrastructure objects) or prefer to visit buildings of a certain type (like old mansions) ?

Personally I like anything with big industry and massive machinery, I find they lend themselves excellently to my style of photography.  We do have others in the group that look for old abandoned mental asylums more though, we jokingly call those people ‘asylum seekers’.  For me though it has to be big industry as a main preference, but there just seems to be an abundance of hospitals and asylums in the UK so I do a lot of those too.

5. Are such places securely protected or usually not ? If so do you need to obtain permission for shoot or you can easy get there and even take from there whatever you want ?

Most places are protected, usually with a security guard and things like big fences and boarded windows etc.  If you talk to the right people, or are clever about it, then finding a way in usually doesn’t present too much of a problem.  Its very rare that we obtain permission for a shoot, in fact I can think of only one place where this has happened personally.

6. To your personal opinion – what does the area necessarily need to have in order to reflect the concept of the “urban decay” and therefore be interesting for photographing ?. Which elements of the scene you consider to be the primary heroes of the scene ?

There doesn’t have to be any one particular thing, often you won’t know what’s in a site till you get inside so you cant rule places out.  There are things that are sought out and always shot if they are found though, the main things being such as mortuary slabs, clock towers, and basically anything unusual such as a grand piano in one site, etc.  There are also the common occurrences that you always shoot, a lovely peeling paint, broken windows, and disgusting toilets. Occasionally I will get in a site and not bother getting the camera out because its nothing but bare stripped walls with no character, but its not often that happens, you can nearly always find something to shoot.

7. I think despite of the total mess in such scenes we as photographers always need to think over the composition. And that always means thinking, analyzing and scouting. Do you use or apply any rules for building your frames ?  Please reveal briefly some of your secrets or recipes which help you to achieve such a magnificent result.

I guess I use the same standard rules that most photographers use when thinking up a shot.  ‘What am I trying to say with this image?’ – Rule of thirds, checking the depth of field, checking I’m not amputating anything I want included and making sure horizons are straight etc.  It’s all just the same things that someone would include for any shot; it just happens that I’m walking through an abandoned building while I’m taking the shot. Something I find I don’t do often enough is including foreground interest, but I’m working on that lately.  I rarely shoot from eye height, usually preferring to get down low for most shots which seems to work well with derelict sites.

8. Philosophically speaking your images tend to reveal the concept that urban civilizations are inevitably doomed to decay some day. Do you personally believe that this could happen and the humans will return to what we have been thousands years ago ? If so, your images are just a form of a declaration or a visual warning, by which  you try to attract the attention of a society and inform people that we have become too dependant of machines and buildings and are very week before the pure nature in case we lose our technical advantages over other forms of life on the planet ? Please share your deep ideas on this aspect.

One subject I find myself returning to when I write narrative about my pictures for sites I upload them to is the fact that nature will once again take over given the chance. It’s good to walk through a derelict site and see the floor rotting back into the earth from which it came, a carpet of ferns and moss covering it and vines creeping in through the windows.  Once man is gone, nature will restore her rightful ownership of these locations.

9. Our personal belief is that this kind of photography is one of the hardest since at least 4 different photographic genres and techniques are involved and mixed together : landscape techniques because you work with perspectives and need to know how to balance the foreground with a background and which element to put into the most significant place of the frame. You also have to deal with a so-to-say still-life photography since many different subjects are located in the scene and they surely need to be presented in the most compositionally attractive way so that the shot reveals an certain level of order instead of a total mess. You also have to know interior and architecture photo techniques because of the 3D constructions you deal with. And you also need to be a postprocession master since the overall result is mostly based on how the image would be processed in HDR software. How would you comment this assumptions ? According to your personal experience, what does this photography is mostly similar to? Does it require a personal, symbolic relation to the theme ?

The still life aspect is not so applicable with my shots, as I try to avoid moving anything at all to take my shot, if at all possible then the picture will represent the view exactly as I found it. I will remove distracting litter etc, but the actual objects that form the image are nearly always as they were when I arrived, I simply move around them and try shooting from different angles to find the look I want.  The landscape aspect is something I am working on as I have often missed adding a foreground interest, something I am trying to change with my more recent shots.  I do find it’s the interior / architectural work and the post processing that I deal with mostly, and those are the things I tend to spend the most time thinking about and dealing with for most of my shots.  I find my intense love of history and architecture of the buildings helps with this, and I have built up a personal style over time which I work towards when working with the post processing.

10. Do you rearrange the elements of the scene according you your personal vision of a balanced composition or you do not allow yourselves to influence into the wild world of  the dying industrial object being slowly swallowed up by the nature ?

As I mentioned in the previous question, I will avoid moving things as much as possible, instead changing my angle and viewpoint on things to get the shot with the elements I wish to be included or excluded.

11. How would you characterized in simple words the successful photo illustrating the “urban decay” concept ?

If the picture reminds you of  scene from a horror movie, or makes you want to go and wash your hands just from looking at it, then I think I have done my job in portraying the decay and desolation these places  provide.

12. How do you prefer to locate the camera and how do you define the level of the shoot across the floor (ground) ? When do you put the camera almost on the floor and when it is needed to be raised over your head ?

As im bracketing most shots for HDR I nearly always use a tripod, and I find I rarely extend the legs of my tripod at all.  I tend to shoot from the ground most often, but will sometimes stand the tripod on a chair or something low.  Being able to move about quickly to avoid security is often necessary so I don’t want to be messing too much with tripods etc.  Occasionally if there is a handy ladder or some beam work I can climb into then I will try to shoot down into the scene, but shoot up is definitely the majority of my work.

13. According to the photographic rules geometry is better perceived if the shot is in BW whereas compositions based on color and tonality are poorly viewed in BW. So how big is the role of a color in HDR urban decay scenes ? Are there cases when you transform the image into BW and it looks better ?  To your point of view what HDR technique gives to the images ? Is it just a way to add the surreal outlook and to strengthen the abstract message of such an image ? Or HDR is just a technical tool to make images looking more crisp and appealing without any philosophical basis ? Please share your thoughts about that.

I think colour can be grossly over used in HDR, something I have tried to avoid.  I tend to use a very low saturation on my HDR work, often as low as 25% on some images.  I find this not only brings out the grime and the decay, but the odd splash of colour from some objects really stand out then.  As most of these derelict sites tend to be grey and dull coloured anyway this low saturdation, almost black and white, method seems to work well.  HDR works well with the strange light situations you find in these places, as well as bringing out the detail in the cracked paint work etc, I just don’t think you can convey the condition of some of these places without it.

14. How much time do you usually need to observe the place and make the needed shots ? Do you usually try to make a photosession within a single visit or there have been cases when you needed to visit the same place again and again looking for new interesting angles ?

I seem to have been quite lucky in that I can often spot good shots as soon as I walk into a room, though I guess a lot of that is based on having explored so many derelicts now.  Time is often short due to security or the fact we may have traveled several hundred miles to get to a place, so taking too long to chose a vantage point for a shot is not really an option.  I will always try to get my shots in one visit if possible, but on the occasion I have gone back to a site then I will always try to avoid the same shots and vantage points I have used before to keep things fresh.

15. Since there is absolutely no chance to use an artificial light, I might conclude that you are fully dependent on the daylight and its brightness. How do your orient the camera across the windows and are there certain rules to use the light for exposing the scene correctly

If the scene is altogether too dark then I have the option of light painting with a torch, simply using long exposures and waving a torch about to illuminate the parts of the scene I want to show in the image.  This can be quite difficult to get right, especially if you are bracketing to do a HDR image, so practicing in your house or somewhere with the lights out is a great way to get used to this. Using HDR to be able to level out the light from a dark interior and bright window, a lot of shots are done with long exposure though to make the most of the barest minimum of light coming into a room.

16. You shoot in RAW format, right ? Is it always enough to have a single exposition or you need to make several shots with different exposures so that all the shadows and  bright areas are exposed correctly. If so what kind of a tripod you use.

I tend to shoot in jpeg most of the time, RAW has never really given me that much difference in my final images.  I control most of the exposure by shutter time on the shoot, so needing to recover from RAW is not usually necessary.  I use a Manfrotto 785b tripod, as it is very small when folded up but still extends to an excellent height if needed.  It also allows for independent extension and angle of the legs, allowing me to put it in some positions that a lot of tripods wont go to.

17. In case you shoot for a panorama , how many shots is done and what the lens is

I don’t shoot panorama when in derelicts.

18. Please give us a list of your equipment used for the urban shots like this. What are the most interesting accessories used in your urban experiments ?

My standard kit bag that I carry for exploring has:

• Canon 400D
• Canon Kit 18-55mm lens
• Sigma 10-20mm lens
• Manfrotto 785b Tripod
• Remote shutter release
• Battery grip
• 4 batteries
• Several memory cards
• Several torches
• 2 way radios for talking to friends
• Face masks for dust and asbestos
• Gloves for climbing
• Hand gel for cleaning

19. Briefly, what procedures are needed to be done for transforming your initial images into HDR ? You use a Photomatix or another software ?

I process all of my images with Photomatix Pro 3, then after I have compiled them into a HDR and tone mapped them in there I will then move the image to photoshop for some work on the contrast, tone, sharpness etc.

20. What place do you dream to visit ? Is there a dreamshot and what should it have ?

Pripyat is the stuff that dreams are made of as far as im concerned, an entire abandoned city just waiting to be shot.  There are some other places I cant wait to visit like the iconic Battersea Power Station and the Paris Catacombs, but Pripyat is most definitely top of my ‘wanted list’

21. What would you advise to our readers who may also dream to make shots like this ?

Be careful, think safety first.  These sites are often home to drug addicts and homeless people who will happily rob you for your camera.  The floors are usually unsafe and are likely to collapse at any time.  There is dust and asbestos all over the place, wear a face mask.  No shot is worth ending up in hospital for!  Apart from that, have fun and try to show the world a side of the urban landscape that they don’t normally get to see, the results can be great.

The pictures they requested were:

Cheers for reading :)

~Shepy