A late Sunday afternoon in the middle of March, and over the wall of my garden I was feeding a swan some bread (not fresh, not stale, small pieces, no crust), and only eventually noticed the quietness. Just the sound of the river and the occasional car driving by on the nearby bridge. The unending, distant crashing sounds from the demolition site had stopped. And there was still 90 minutes of daylight left. Hang on, they had clocked off early!
I've been wanting to take one last set of rooflight pictures in there to close out the series made a year ago, as the building now makes its final transition by way of demolition. As the structures have been partly torn open on one side I was pre-visualising making an image with the lines of glass rectangles high up above snaking across and abruptly ending in jagged metal and sky.
I had been deterred by various things; like anti-climb paint on the top bar of the gate (not noticed till it was on my hand) and a workman noticing me, the same one, twice. And nervousness. I'm easily embarrassed. It's not much in the greater scheme of things. And so I'm unexpectedly perseverent. It's become a sort of niggling compulsion to face the social fear and just go take some photos there, with the added pressure of time running out. At the rate they are going (demolition occurring 07.30 - 17.30 seven days a week) it wouldn't be long before all the old factory buildings were flattened and the debris trucked away.
That anxiety of being challenged, for being somewhere where one is not supposed to be, and not being confident of explaining myself very well, meant it was not fun to be finally inside (when I finally made the leap). It was windy and partially detached bits of roof-cladding were slamming about, as if demolition was still going on around me. I half expected to see the man in flourescent orange high-vis work clothes appear at any moment and not be happy to find me there. And there was the nagging question of how to get back out. An adjacent anti-car bollard had been helpful to get some height to hop up onto the seven foot high fence getting in but there wasn't much to assist getting back out.
Still, afterwards, with only one sprained ankle and a cut hand, it was a post-photography relieved feeling. I'd been in and there'd been no awkward scene, and I was now free of the niggling, fretful compulsion that's been eating away at me for the last month.
I've been wanting to take one last set of rooflight pictures in there to close out the series made a year ago, as the building now makes its final transition by way of demolition. As the structures have been partly torn open on one side I was pre-visualising making an image with the lines of glass rectangles high up above snaking across and abruptly ending in jagged metal and sky.
I had been deterred by various things; like anti-climb paint on the top bar of the gate (not noticed till it was on my hand) and a workman noticing me, the same one, twice. And nervousness. I'm easily embarrassed. It's not much in the greater scheme of things. And so I'm unexpectedly perseverent. It's become a sort of niggling compulsion to face the social fear and just go take some photos there, with the added pressure of time running out. At the rate they are going (demolition occurring 07.30 - 17.30 seven days a week) it wouldn't be long before all the old factory buildings were flattened and the debris trucked away.
That anxiety of being challenged, for being somewhere where one is not supposed to be, and not being confident of explaining myself very well, meant it was not fun to be finally inside (when I finally made the leap). It was windy and partially detached bits of roof-cladding were slamming about, as if demolition was still going on around me. I half expected to see the man in flourescent orange high-vis work clothes appear at any moment and not be happy to find me there. And there was the nagging question of how to get back out. An adjacent anti-car bollard had been helpful to get some height to hop up onto the seven foot high fence getting in but there wasn't much to assist getting back out.
Still, afterwards, with only one sprained ankle and a cut hand, it was a post-photography relieved feeling. I'd been in and there'd been no awkward scene, and I was now free of the niggling, fretful compulsion that's been eating away at me for the last month.