During August 2020, I embarked on an outing to explore the possibilities of photographing the railway station which closed in 1978. Always looking for other opportunities, I spotted a derelict sawmill close by and took the time to go inside for some interesting shots. On visiting Ballarto again this October, I paid the sawmill another visit, with a surprising outcome.
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Please note: this post has been written for photographers and is therefore quite lengthy and does get quite technical
For me, one of the primary objectives of our tour round Tasmania was to develop my skills in photographing subject matter that sits outside my normal genre, the built environment, and to come back with a few images that are worthy of potentially offering as framed photographs for sale and as possible competition entries.…
From Day 02 to today the wind was unrelenting and seemed to get stronger as the night wore on. Having had very little, if any, sleep, Kerena and I agreed at 3 o’clock in the morning that we would forgo a further sleepless night of forecasted high winds at Arthur River in preference to heading to Queestown, our next planned stop.
It was with much relief and excitement that my partner and I heard the announcement last Friday that the Tasmanian border had been opened. Relief, because we had booked the ferry, with fingers crossed, a couple of months in advance, and excitement because of our planned four week circumnavigation around the island state.
In my younger days, I have on the odd occasion fallen asleep in a bar – a few beers and a warm atmosphere can have that effect!
My most recent such experience was much less random when a visit to Rushworth in Regional Victoria included an overnight stay.
Not many people would purposefully visit a museum when it is closed, but I did exactly that during a recent short stay in Hobart.
Of course, the museum is no ordinary museum – it was the Museum of Old and Modern Art – and, actually, I did not have much choice about it being open or not as the only day I could visit was Christmas Day.
I am sure you have seen those amazing videos of clouds scudding across the skies, of shipping arriving and departing port in no time at all and of buildings being built in as short a time as 5 minutes. And you will no doubt realise that these are created from a series of individual photographs taken at intervals over the duration of the project or activity.
Infrastructure projects are probably the least glamorous in the built environment space, but occasionally, a little gem is created. One of these is the Falkirk Wheel in Scotland. Opened in 2002, this engineering marvel completes a continuous waterway between Edinburgh and Glasgow by connecting the Union Canal and the Forth and Clyde Canal.
Setting up a project to shoot progressive photographs of a construction project, as outlined in my blog post ‘Preparation, preparation, preparation’, is only the first step in achieving a successful outcome. If you are not properly prepared for each of your regular visits, you good project set up will be for nothing.
You will only do these once – arrive on site once to find your memory card full, camera battery low on charge or not have the correct paperwork.
One of the many things I have learned from my career in design and management within the built environment is the importance of diligent preparation before embarking on a project.
The prospect of photographically recording the progressive development of a construction project involving multiple visits from start to finish is no exception. In fact, the better prepared you are for any photographic assignment, the better the outcome.