We get nostalgic – protective even – of landmarks. For me as an observer, this is an interesting piece of engineering and industry, but for many locals, it represented something, as did its removal from the landscape. I’ve been a member of a Teeside steelworks Facebook group for a few years and it’s open to…
Tag: Redcar
#611 – Redcar Blast Furnace – Last Chance To See: Part 2
A man with an enormous Leica and a chap who had retired as technical manager at the nearby Skinningrove steelworks were also photographing and we struck up a conversation as photographers often do. Both were local and far more informed than I, an outsider to the area and industry. We were joined by a photographer…
#610 – Redcar Blast Furnace – Last Chance To See: Part 1
I’ve been intrigued by the blast furnace at Redcar for many years, and have made 5 trips to photograph it since 2009. Most of the British steel industry had gone by the time I started photographing industry in the mid-2000’s, and I didn’t grow up in an area that had any steelmaking (well, there was…
#598 – The Art of the Panorama Part 2 – Teesside
While there doesn’t appear to be a codified, internationally recognized ratio for what constitutes ratios for panoramic photographs, 2:1 or greater seems to be generally agreed. Personally, I go with whatever looks right and I’ve no idea what the ratios of the images in this post are, but if you don’t agree that they are…
#551 – Review of the decade – 2019
As per the last few years, 2019 saw no urbex and a continuing focus on the industrial and urban landscape. After several years of waiting for a drone with the spec I wanted at the right price I finally took the plunge and bought a DJI Mavic Pro 2 and it’s seen a bit of…
#550 – Review of the decade – 2018
A most productive year, with a revisit to Redcar, some abandonment – albeit explored with permission – and more experimentation with long exposures. Pincroft Dyers – January 2018 I live at the other end of Chorley to this Dyeworks, pretty much the last remnant of Chorley’s textile industry that is still in use. It’s in…
#541 – Review of the decade – 2010
The start of a new decade brings with it a certain degree of reflection, mainly along the lines of ‘f**k me where have the last eleven years gone’. Over the Christmas period I noticed that the papers and other media are full of reviews of the decade, so, slave to convention that I am, I…
#533 – Drone photography – Redcar
I’ve been to Redcar Steelworks a few times, and although it’s now nearly 4 years since the plant was shut down, the site appears to be largely intact from the outside (although I know some demolition work has taken place inside). Attractive though it would be to hop the fence, I know from experience that…
#504 – 500 Post Retrospective No.4 – Iron and Steel
Britain once had a huge iron and steel industry, but there’s not much left now. The closure of the Redcar works in 2015 meant that there were only two major steelworks left in the UK, along with a number of rolling mills and electric arc furnaces. There had been much retraction of the industry in…
Mechanical Landscapes 