moment of clarity

Before all the hype and nonsense that UE became in the uk and interforum shite raised its ugly head and people cashing in on this game . There i was climbing the fresh build towers of swansea just to see the view and not look for credit or my cock sucked on a forum or flickr. This is ue pure an simple kids fresh kills this is not, but this one image says a lot to me for my work. Yea i got my degree now, but just a simple brain wave to check some old photobucket account can give you the kick you need to think about your skills in another mindset, to stay away from all this bullshit maybe even put the camera down and sit and pause and take in what this can offer to the human soul rather than this hype fest that UE has become.

yes im drunk and in a philosophical mood tonight after seeing some work from a few years ago.

plymouth shelter

A small ladder leads into a little know part of the dark days of world war 2, this is many of the world war 2 shelters made during the dark days of the blitz to protect the people of Plymouth from the blitz this small hatch cracked and rusting originally an escape route this now gives us access into this world. hardly under ground bar a few feet of soil and concrete hastily made in the start of the war using the cut and cover method a large hole dug filled with a concrete floor and lined with pre made panels and tied together with a series of steel beams then buried to offer some form of protection against the falling bombs this space small and poorly lit offered some shelter from regular raids. During the time in the shelter the former occupants left us clues in the form of small pieces of graffiti drawn in pencil on the wall. This portrait of life in stoke gives us a tangible personal clue to the day to day life of the people of Plymouth during the dark days of world war 2 and adds a historical and personal context to what would just be a series of rooms and chambers without the graffiti.
To enlarge the images click on them

Plymouth navy day 1944


NAFFI





a list of local names and addresses and a possible football score at the bottom



to add a scale and perspective to the graffiti the below images give a context and scale of the shelter.
the shot towards the cubical for the toilets



this would have been lined down one side with benches.

Penallta Colliery

Recently found myself in wales and well it would be rude not to visit what south wales was famous for and no not Tom Jones the coal. Penalta colliery was first shown to me by another local explorer, at the time the site was under renovation the bath house and winding house where both bricked up and tightly guarded following the restoration and site works finishing this enabled access to the bath house and winding house at last.The bath house is a lovely mix of 1920's art deco movement a stunning mix of brick and curves sadly the full splendor of this building purpose its showers have been wrecked by mindless idiots smashing the glazed brick cubicles in domino fashion. still the art deco building even in this state of decay still holds quite a bit of charm. onto the winding house this dates to 1908 when the site was first built, the internals of the winding house are long gone only trace left is 2 large fans to push air down the shafts.the inside of the winding house is made of glazed tile and brick arches sadly my images of this half of the site where not that good a bit more info is here on the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penallta_Colliery
the images where shot on a mamiya 645 with fuji 160s film with a 80mm lens

weekly visual diary

Well i always carry a camera with me when im out and about, by the end of the normal week i end up with a series of images that sometimes sit on the hard drive or end up going nowhere but the bin. So what i have decided to do is just add a few images to this every week or so to kinda act as a visual diary, so what we have here is a small sequence from the last week i still have a few london street shots to go on here and a few other bits and bobs so standby for them

work experience

so again as a part of my FDA iv'e got to do 30 hours of work experience and do a quick description of what i had done so here we go.

Rewind to last September i found myself sending a few emails to the local paper the herald after a few emails and a call to the office. I found myself at the office at 8am not quite knowing what to expect. The morning started with the normal introduction and the standard health and safety talk and then onto the task at hand.
The day to day work of a local news tog the day starts with a list of jobs and times to be at the locations. This week we had everything from a sex offender to fire arms taken from a drug dealer to silver wedding anniversary's and to be on call to any braking stories that required shooting. So monday we had to do a shoot down at Laira bridge where 2 girls saved a guy who fell in the Plym river while drunk. Then the day after it was drugs bust to shoot images of the weed they found at an address in Plymouth. This was the standard pattern to the week drive to a job do the shoot back to the office upload the images to the computer system with a quick bit of editing ,from there they are printed as acontact sheet and taken to the news desk for the editors to choose the correct image for the paper. Towards the end of the week i had the opportunity to do some of the shooting myself this led to me having a few images in the paper. This was of a certificate presentation and a woman who had made some community art in Saltash. The image of the certificate presentation was used in the paper on page 20. over all it was a good week and i gained a good insight into the working of a press photographer and the use of flash and the work flow management needed to produce the images to the correct standard

leading on from this i did a day's shooting for skills cornwall. This was down in the redruth lesure center.This was organised by http://www.prospects.co.uk/ this involved the local college s and education groups and businesses. The aim of the shoot was to supply a series of images for use in the promo of the next event. I used the 17-40 and the 70-200 lens and a flash for fill in and a canon 30d. The images where shot as jpg and then edited down to a large and small file.
the images where corporate style shots full length and and close up details to be used to promote the next skills cornwall event

exhibition

So right we have some work being shown as a part of my FDA course. the full info is below for the show, so lets get some feet thru the door and get a few people there spread the word and lets fill the place



thanks

now 26 uk urbex mega mix

So rather than posting a separate report for all the sites, i will just dish out some chunks of prime film filth from under Derby and some Greek wet dream shots of TG greens pottery. And just for the brummies im in ur control rooms playing with your dials and buttons then onto a bit of cold war flavor bunker.
Thanks to urbanity for this mini epic road trip and the other heads that gave us a bit of intel.

captain birds eye flow selecta








now for tg greens a very quick look here was in and out after 20 min and onto the
next







then onto the power station









bunker











excuse the lack of info on this last site its for its own good