As I was about to go on holiday, I thought I’d swing by after work to get a few more shots of the mill, in case it had gone by the time I got back (it hadn’t, it was still there). The evening sun was largely in my favour, and with a cloudy sky, there was something going on at the top of the picture to counter-balance the foreground.
Demolition had re-commenced and the remaining east section of the mill had been torn away before work stopped for the day, so I re-took Saturdays photos. The shadows cast by the sun help add some shade to the otherwise bland concrete are in the foreground, although I wish I’d got a bit more of the undergrowth in the scene to the right.
This was almost a great picture, but as I was kind of looking into the sun again, I didn’t realise at the time that the long blade of grass goes right up the mill tower. It’s my own fault for not checking the image on the telly on the back of the camera diligently enough, but it’s very annoying as it’s all I can see when I look at the picture now.
Finally, these are a variation on one I took a few weeks back and posted in an earlier blog post, and I think they work quite well. It’s compositionally similar to one I took at Lune Mills in Lancaster, albeit the scale is smaller and was difficult to compose. I initially chose to knock the mill out of focus, but then increased the aperture to get it in focus. This was somewhat easier on my Fuji X10 than my DSLR as its smaller sensor gives a greater depth of field, and its macro focussing mode allowed me to get closer to the razor wire that I was keen to get in focus.
I tried the same thing on my SLR, but even at F22 I couldn’t get the mill in focus as well as the wire. This is due to my only close focussing lens having a pseudo macro function from 50mm onwards, and on a full frame sensor, you still get a limited DoF.
I wanted to make a feature of the razor wire in the foreground to help give the image some depth, and I think the mill in focus possibly works better as you then see why the wire is there, i.e. to keep you out!
Mechanical Landscapes 
Nice drama in the top shot! With regards to the razor wire shots, my personal preference is for the one with the mill out of focus – I like the sense of mystery that it gives.
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Thanks Graham, the top shot is probably my favourite of all the ones I’ve taken of the mill over the past few weeks. Interesting to hear your thoughts on the barded wires as I’ve been in two minds about them – the one with my SLR (not posted here, might put it on Flickr) have the mill more in focus than the blurred one, but not as sharp as the other. They all work, but in different ways. I’ll give them a few weeks and see what I think then!
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The top ones are very dramatic sceneries, beautifully captured and processed. Such a vast richness of tones. My favourite is the first one, it’s more dramatic and it gives a better sense of the demolished surroundings. For the razor wire images, I’ll go for the last one, it creates a feeling of sadness and loneliness for me.
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Thank you Otto, I was very fortunate with the sky for the first one, especially as it converted so well to monochrome.
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