Haut Fourneau - Abandoned Industrial Factory
HF - Abandoned Factory... Everything is so LARGE !
HF - Abandoned Factory... Everything is so LARGE !
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Jan, 2017Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This picture is taken in an abandoned factory, as a mater of fact a blast furnace. The used to blast iron ore into iron here, to make steel or other metals out of it. I've done more abandoned factories in the past, even more blast furnaces. But this one a very large site, so this was my second visited, and I probably have not seen everything.Time
Just before noon, and after a big hail storm was the time I took this picture. The sky turned orange, and that's when the beautiful colors of rust became real on the entire site. So I immediately took advantage of the natural light that came towards the huge facility.Lighting
Urban explorers often use HDR (High Dynamic Range) technique. To create a picture with HDR you need different pictures with different exposures. So different light on every exposure. By doing this, you can see details in the lower exposures, mostly the sky, and also details details in the higher exposures, mostly the shadows or the darker spots in the picture. Even in de highlights, you can see colors or details when converting to black & white.Equipment
I shot this picture with my Nikon D7100 and Nikon AF-S Nikkor 12-24 mm f4.0 ED-GD lens. My Manfrotto MK055XPRO3-3W gained the stability in the picture, which is a very solid one !Inspiration
Typical for industrial sites is that everything is large. If I had placed a normal person next to the huge pipes, you would see how big these pipes really are. The sun was behind me, and exposed the really so nice colors of rust, and the yellow in the railing, even de diffence in the different dorts of black (50 shades of grey) were so nice and inspired me to take this shot from a tripod, a little bit upwards.Editing
As I visit lots of abandoned places in the world, in most of the occasions I use HDR in my post-processing process. It's a basic step to get more details in the picture. It's not easy to process this with 'overload'. I always try to keep the picture as naturel as possible. After the High Dynamic Range basic step, I use Adobe Photoshop & Adobe Lightroom to straiten the picture and to apply correction of the lens, because most of the time I use wide angle lenses. Also the last details I edit in these 2 Adobe programs to get my picture finished.In my camera bag
For now, I only use my Nikon D7100, but soon I will be upgrading to the Nikon D500. I won't keep my 7100 in my camera bag as a spare, because you need to travel light when you urban explore. It will stay in the car... My Nikon wide angle 12-24mm lens as always with me, but recently I also bought a 8mm f3.5T fisheye from Samyang, which I always take with. When I'm not Urban Exploring, I also take my Tamron SP 24-70mm F2.8 VC USD. 2 Neewer 910 Flashes is also gear that I use, but not standard in my bag.Feedback
If you intend to go out with your camera to photograph an abandoned site, you first need to do you homework. Google earth is your best friend in cases like this, because you can explore everything from our satellites out there. Search for large area's and no cars around from employees, because that means it's probably abandoned. You can also use news papers, or in general the news around the globe, because there you can receive information that large factories are closed. The next thing is to gather your gear. In most of the times, black clothes that surely are dirty when you are back home are recommended. Never forget band-aids, working shoes, work wear gloves, and some more stuff to protect yourself if you get hurt. Get op very early and try to enter you're exploration site also very early, even best when the sun is just up. When you enter you're 'playground' for the day, you don't want to get spoted by neighbors that can call the police, because, what you are doing is not legal at all. Always be very kind to copper thieves when you meet them, and be as quiet as you can, because sometimes, security is around to hold the copper thieves out of the area you are exploring. As a last tip, I can tell you be very careful in every step you take, because danger can be in every corner, so watch your step ! Take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints !
