When it comes to abandoned buildings, I am far from an expert - each image of an abandoned place I've ever taken has been somewhat of an accident. I have never looked for such places for two reasons - the first being t's illegal to trespass in property in Bulgaria (and that goes for the abandoned, window-less and door-less buildings too) and you can get into trouble with the police. The second reason is that there is some air of melancholy around most of the abandoned buildings - as if you can feel that someone has lived, loved and hated in this place and you are an intruder. This feeling makes me reluctant to enter such buildings (apart from the obvious danger for your your life such as falling objects, shaky staircases and collapsing ceilings).
In a previous post about finding style and inspiration I said that the excessive HDR effect is not that good - being too obvious. During the post-processing it turned out that actually a bit more of clarity brings out more in the image. Not all images look good like this but still most of them do. Somehow, adding details to the image makes all defects of the facade stand out and all cracks and holes more prominent, which for the sake of abandoned buildings looks good.
For the sake of the presentation and the way slides looked like I had to re-frame most of the images. Since the last time I submitted my work in progress portfolio, I was scolded for having coloured (gray) bands around the images, this time I made an effort not to have any bands in the PDF. The whole operation required cutting out of some sections of the image (I tried to cut out only pieces that are least interesting/important to the composition).
All images in the portfolio represent either abandoned or ill-kept buildings in Crete, Greece and two locations in Bulgaria - Sofia and Zlatograd. The diversity of locations is due to the following fact - when i started compiling my work in progress portfolio my initial idea was for it to be a travel one - so the destination was Crete (a truly amazing place). Then, after some discussion with peers and tutors, I had to discard that idea entirely and choose on a new topic which would serve for a more coherent portfolio. The images I took in Crete will be used for my project, Culture Crossroads but very few images from Crete made it to the final cut for my portfolio.
It all started with the image below. The tutors and peers claimed that it is a really powerful image so I could try and compile a portfolio of abandoned images. I rose up to the challenge and here they are - two houses in Crete, 2 houses in Zlatograd and 6 houses in Sofia. The ones in Crete are abandoned (of that I am sure), the two in Zlatograd are abandoned as well but some of the houses in Sofia are not - or so the locals told me.
If I had the proper time, I would try to explore more of these abandoned houses and re-shoot the images from the house with the tower since I hate the dull blue sky. Another idea I had was to shoot the places in all four seasons - to show how they change and decay as time passes. Also I would definitely try to collaborate with the people from the Fadind Sofia project - I wrote an email, probably have to write again.
All images in the portfolio represent either abandoned or ill-kept buildings in Crete, Greece and two locations in Bulgaria - Sofia and Zlatograd. The diversity of locations is due to the following fact - when i started compiling my work in progress portfolio my initial idea was for it to be a travel one - so the destination was Crete (a truly amazing place). Then, after some discussion with peers and tutors, I had to discard that idea entirely and choose on a new topic which would serve for a more coherent portfolio. The images I took in Crete will be used for my project, Culture Crossroads but very few images from Crete made it to the final cut for my portfolio.
It all started with the image below. The tutors and peers claimed that it is a really powerful image so I could try and compile a portfolio of abandoned images. I rose up to the challenge and here they are - two houses in Crete, 2 houses in Zlatograd and 6 houses in Sofia. The ones in Crete are abandoned (of that I am sure), the two in Zlatograd are abandoned as well but some of the houses in Sofia are not - or so the locals told me.
If I had the proper time, I would try to explore more of these abandoned houses and re-shoot the images from the house with the tower since I hate the dull blue sky. Another idea I had was to shoot the places in all four seasons - to show how they change and decay as time passes. Also I would definitely try to collaborate with the people from the Fadind Sofia project - I wrote an email, probably have to write again.
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