Having just finished my first set of test shots where I looked at dilapidated buildings, I decided I would now move on to take pictures of places that are more forgotten than dilapidated. What I mean by this is taking photos of places that are in locations that make them very easy to see, but people often just don’t look at them or think about the importance that they would have had in the past. This will hopefully allow me to show the story of these places to help bring them back to life.
Similarly, to Feijen’s second image of the bus which has been overgrown, I want my locations to be in plain sight but be overgrown by greenery or taken over in some other way, such as covered over by water or by sand on a beach for example. This would most likely mean that the location is often overlooked, and although it may once have been important, it is now forgotten to the point that people walking by it take no notice of it even being there anymore. Within these test shots, I will once again use both Schreck and Feijen’s styles of gloomy and scary as well as natural and unedited to see which I like the best.
The first location that I am considering taking my second test shots, is a beach building located on the beach between East Runton and Cromer in Norfolk. This is a small building that was once used as a lookout for the army, but has now fallen from the cliff and is sinking into the sand to the point where people may not even notice it’s there anymore. This building is now so far into the sand that you can no longer access it, and only a small part is visible from the sand. The thing that I thought was unique about this location is that none of the other chosen locations has been covered by sand. I haven’t really seen any images like this before, so I thought it would put a unique spin on the forgotten and dilapidated place images.
My second location idea for this theme is an old and potentially no longer used graveyard. This would be overgrown by greenery and forgotten to the point that you may no longer be able to access it easily, despite the fact that it was once used regularly to visit people that had unfortunately been lost. It would be very unique to take images of a forgotten location like this because very special days would have once been made there due to funerals, and finding a forgotten location like this would show that a lot of time has passed and even those that are buried can even be forgotten.
My third location idea is a block of houses that has been closed off within Northampton that is near to Vue and the antique shop that has the elephant on the roof. This building got blocked off by fences due to them becoming too run down and dangerous for the people to continue living there in a safe environment. These buildings are once again in plain sight as they are on a normal road, however, people often overlook them and don’t think about them existing at all. The unique thing about this location is that people may have lived in these buildings not so long ago, and, similarly to the last theme, there may still be belongings and furniture within the building that was left by the people that used to live there. This would give the place a sense of being forgotten and abandoned, giving it its own unique story.
My fourth and final location idea for this theme is old boats that have been abandoned at harbours or potentially in old boating salvage yards. I like this idea because nobody would be paying attention to these any more but they would be more unique than any of the other images I have seen, due to their unique story of being out at sea and once being used to make money and provide people with jobs. Due to the way they have aged, people will once again most likely not think about the story that these boats have had and the many years of time that they will have spent at sea, making them another forgotten location. There may also be some fishing gear still on these boats, enhancing their story more and giving more depth to the images.
Molly Cadman's Photography 