It's been two years since I last snuck in (and was escorted out of) the nearby closed-down agricultural chemicals factory. They'd now discretely installed CCTV and I knew I wouldn't go back as I'd not have very long to take pictures, and I would be wasting their time having to come and get me. But recently most of the double-glazed windows of the two-storey office block on the perimeter have been smashed out, so people are clearly now spending a fair bit of time in there, presumably undisturbed. Security must have gotten too expensive to sustain.
It was a warm September day with a bloom of sunshine and so naturally I was on my way to take (more) photos of Jasper Johns inspired striped t-shirts on the clothing rails in TK-Max but when I saw some boys emerging unhurriedly from a gap ripped in the metal of the main gate, with some booty in their hands, I diverted there instead.
Since doing pictures of the Hoval factory roof-lights last May I've wanted to try another site, and these old closed-down factories all seem to have them. The roof of the main building at Hoval was a dizzying 25 metres high but here none are more than about 10 metres high. As a result the effect of long sweep pans was to mostly make sharp curves, even when I tried kneeling on the floor to get lower. With some waw-wawing of the camera movement during the pan it was possible to straighten out one or two.
Apart from some minor vandalism the internal space is much the same, just a lot of scattering of everything light enough to move. There are still pungent chemical powders heaped in damp, mouldy timber or blackened steel bays, and here or there as a thick dust on the slab concrete floor which desiccates the throat. The outer, hanging, corrugated sheet vernacular doors were still un-secured and moved in the breeze, occasionally lifted like bed-sheets on a washing line, billowing up and out, and then falling back against the frame with a loud crash that reverberated around the site.
It was a warm September day with a bloom of sunshine and so naturally I was on my way to take (more) photos of Jasper Johns inspired striped t-shirts on the clothing rails in TK-Max but when I saw some boys emerging unhurriedly from a gap ripped in the metal of the main gate, with some booty in their hands, I diverted there instead.
Since doing pictures of the Hoval factory roof-lights last May I've wanted to try another site, and these old closed-down factories all seem to have them. The roof of the main building at Hoval was a dizzying 25 metres high but here none are more than about 10 metres high. As a result the effect of long sweep pans was to mostly make sharp curves, even when I tried kneeling on the floor to get lower. With some waw-wawing of the camera movement during the pan it was possible to straighten out one or two.
Apart from some minor vandalism the internal space is much the same, just a lot of scattering of everything light enough to move. There are still pungent chemical powders heaped in damp, mouldy timber or blackened steel bays, and here or there as a thick dust on the slab concrete floor which desiccates the throat. The outer, hanging, corrugated sheet vernacular doors were still un-secured and moved in the breeze, occasionally lifted like bed-sheets on a washing line, billowing up and out, and then falling back against the frame with a loud crash that reverberated around the site.