This morning, @neilru75 and I ventured to this waterworks building in West Yorkshire. I've visited here before but only with a camera phone for a recce.
My intention was to try a bit of daytime lightpainting within a long gallery section. This building is close to a village with presumably curtain twitchers and the flashing lights and smoke from my night time visit would surely have attracted attention. So a daylight visit it was then!
I haven't been able to find out much about this building but it must be provided pump facilities for the nearby Whitley Reservoir. The resevoir is one of Yorkshire Water's smaller upland reservoirs and is situated on the top of a hill outside Dewsbury. The water is surrounded by embankments on all sides.
To get in to this building, it's necessary to climb over a fence and at my age and the fact that I'm built for comfort and not for speed, it's not at all easy! The part of urban exploration where the photographer makes a very undignified entrance is rarely documented and I haven't either!
I couldn't help myself
I am a lightpainter by night and I couldn't help myself, shooting this hand held with a smoke pellet thrown behind Neil. I exposed for the high lights in the frame and let the strobe do it's work:
Out of focus amongst the pigeon shit
I like a bit of out of focus stuff and Neil here stood in the frame providing the mood:
This ain't no Stairway to Heaven
I shot this using a Sony A7iii with excellent high dynamic range and here I exposed for the wall behind Neil. In Photoshop I pulled up the shadows on the lower stairs and I think I just about got away with it!
Brutalist
The whole building has an air of brutalist architecture which must date this building to sometime in the 1960's when it was very much in fashion! Notice Neil peeking from behind a pillar...
Playing to the Gallery
The main central spine to the building contains a larger corridor about 40 mtrs long. Either side of the gallery is 2 mtr x 2mtr wide trenches. It's actually quite dangerous in the section of the building with quite a few pit falls, literally pits to fall in! I have absolutely no idea how or why this would be but it does make a great frame for a silhouette shot:
Shooting the Shooter
I took a photo of the stairs with my camera, then took a photo of the camera....
That gallery again...
I need to get back here in the dark and spin some steel wool in this building!
Intruder Window
We didn't have to climb in through the window to get in but I shot the window anyways. It was quite foggy and cold this morning!
In need of some modernisation
With this being a mostly intact re-inforced concrete structure, I can easily see this building being snapped up by a developer and turned in to a posh £3 million pad! Some parts need a bit of TLC though...
A Safe Place?
Dotted all over the site are holes in the concrete floors. If I do visit here in the dark, I'll have to keep a sharp eye out for these little ankle breakers!
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to create art.
Social Media
https://www.facebook.com/fastchrisuk
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fastchris/
It's good to see there are places you can still get in. We just did a Liverpool trip and the number of fails was disappointing. It's getting harder to find even bad derps.
Yep, it's getting to be like mission, impossible these days. I think this place might be uninteresting to some urbexers but I liked it for the lightpainting potential. Brutalism goes quite well lit up in the dark.
Really great shots Chris, it was a really good morning 😊 I'm looking forward to getting mine edited, especially the Emley Moor mast from the way home 👍
Cheers pal, that's a whole other post surely?
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Haha, we clearly need a trail of blood in the shot....
Interesting location, I wanna be there.