MissAniela

Asylum-seeking

Above: Holes in your head today

The idea of using an abandoned mental asylum as a location was first suggested to me by a friend, Guy Feldman. I then mentioned it to Matthew, whose prompt Google searches dug up the disused Hellingly Hospital (not so obscure though – it has, to date, 3000 followers on Facebook, or should I say now – ‘likers’ – bah). One weekend we ventured up, on our first expedition of the kind. The trip was rewarding in terms of artistic outcome, and we ventured into more abandoned places with further internet research. I have noted several aspects to shooting in locations like these:

First, the mixture of indoor and outdoor light, within a technically ‘indoor’ place. The roofs are often broken, letting in sometimes celestial sunrays into what would otherwise be a dark, damp enclosed room, so you have the benefits of shooting in an indoor, urban environment but with good and interesting lighting. However, a lot of abandoned places are heavily boarded up, so are very dark inside, and therefore alot less practical (and dangerous). We have made an effort to visit all of the places on sunny days, which for some images (like the one below) resulted in a quite curiously paradoxical relationship between the beautiful blue sky through the window, and the derelict interior. One big, fat tip: for shots like the one below, auto-bracket like crazy! Rooms like this were made for HDR…

Above: Shaft. Shot in an abandoned girls’ school

Secondly, there is a distinctly pressured context. You’re creeping into somewhere you shouldn’t, and you never know when you might get spotted and thrown out. You don’t know how much time you’ve got left, so you have to get shooting straight away, no dithering. Matthew and I can have maunges and disagreements when we start doing collaborative shoots, but in these cases, there was no time for that. We had to just get on with it, with a few whispers of discussion (me mostly swearing). You just have to get on with it, trying to ignore the creaking bowel movements of adrenalin. The image below, shot in an asylum in Surrey, was taken as I ’scuttled’ along to my position for the photograph at the end of the corridor, trying to keep myself hidden from being seen at the window.

Above: Scuttled

The context also means that you can’t plan very well, with no idea of the layout of the grounds and each building, unless you do a location scout first and then return (but then you might find that previously-accessible doors have been boarded up again – even if you’ve been to a certain room before, security might have come along and sealed it off) and you might find yourself in a room that’s vaguely interesting but you’re not sure whether to keep looking for something better. Your trespassing could be brought to a swift end by security at any moment. So you have to just go for it. For the image below, taken at Hellingly Mental Hospital, we spent quite a while shooting in the ‘blue room’ as we called it. Matthew had seen this particular room in his previous internet research, so was particularly pleased that we stumbled across it. I spent a while jumping around for these slightly slow exposures, to make this composite from the shots later.

Above: Her fleeting imprint.

Compositing, as used in the image above, comes in handy not just for multiplicity endeavours. For the image below, I composited shots of myself taken in one room, into another. The room in the image below was impossible to step into, without risking life, limb and camera – the floor was caving in. For the image further below, A voice inside, I used compositing to change my reflection – and Her possession went all out with the addition of extra hands!

Above: Souls to the window

Above: A voice inside

Above: Her possession

Even in a great location, ideas for photographs don’t come automatically. I discovered that the first time I went along to shoot self-portraits in a hotel. I expected ideas to flood in as soon as the door to the empress suite shut behind me. Not so… you have to find ways to use the location, like you have to find ways to ‘use’ anything. However, with these abandoned asylums, both Matthew and I felt quite inspired as soon as we entered. We could see the potential for a certain shot straight away. We would see the scene I would step into it and then come back to review the image and re-position myself. The image below was shot in an impressive padded cell, still intact and mostly unvandalised. I went straight in and took my clothes off for a series of largely-SOOC motion shots.

Above: The rubber room.

When I stepped into the first place, Hellingly, I was filled with emotions and adrenalin – without sounding melodramatic, for me, it gave me a sense of feeling truly alive, to be amongst a ‘dead’ place. The notion of a building, and the significance of material objects, became so much more apparent in this decaying context, than I take for granted in the everyday bustle of functioning rooms and objects. I immediately felt inclined to try and blend in with these sinister surroundings, to almost ‘play dead’:

Above: The revelation

I found that problematic thoughts emerged, however, the more I dived into ghostly poses in these places  – I found myself questioning how to interpret the locations. I know little about their history (other than a few facts) and I interpret them in a quite generic way, ie. pursuing a portrait that is creepy, ethereal, disturbing. Looking at other people’s images made in these kind of locations, too, I see that their interpretations can be quite literal. I can’t help but feel a bit wary of being too straightforward about ‘what to do’ in these locations. To be honest, this is not a matter confined to this context. I struggle all the time wondering ‘what to do’ in my images and I bet all photographers do too. With these locations, I don’t want to be too obvious, ie. play the ghost of a mentally disturbed person, sitting in the corner of the room of a mental asylum. I have tried to be a bit more tenuous with my approach and produce images that suggest ghostly narratives but don’t spell them out – aiming to be artistic, rather than factually accurate.

For the image taken in the school below, I posed in a gown I’d bought from a second-hand vintage shop in Brighton, and at the time, felt a little ambiguous about what potential meaning I was making with the posing and location. I think in retrospect I was perhaps taking the location for granted at the time. The outfit and the ethereal light (plus the location that you don’t see every day, at least not without sneaking through some bushes and patrolled security grounds first) added up to make the images quite popular on my Flickr stream.

Above: Waiting room

I will also mention again, the importance of auto-bracketing. We find that we auto-bracket most of these locations because of the nature of the light. The two images below are poignant examples. Even if the exposures don’t match exactly (for movement, especially with the human element) you can manually take the exposures into Photoshop and do a bit of rejigging yourself, erasing through the layers where you would like to see detail, as in the ceiling of Stage left.

Above: Stage left

Above: Torn

And more extreme HDR:

Above: Peek

Because of the pressurised context causing time restraints, I crave shooting a model in one of these places, which would allow me to immediately position and view my subject without always needing joint effort from my companion/human tripod/intermediary/collaborative partner Matthew (though he’s also indispensable as an expert at finding our way around these rotten mazes – and – for giving me the guts to enter in the first place). I have had one experience with a model in an abandoned hospital where it was pitch black inside, resulting in images that are torch-lit, somewhat noise-ridden, but kind of spooky after a spot of motion photography and smoke compositing (I did not set fire to the place…):

Above: Smoke starter (Model: Steffi Rox)

I’m going to be creating a book of self-portraits shot in abandoned places, to be on Blurb this summer, which I’ll let you know about in due course… the book will feature images you see here, plus more that I have not published to the web.

To view any of these images larger, or to see more of my abandoned-location images, go to my set on Flickr. Or, see a selection larger on my website, under ‘New self-portraits’.

To add, if you know any more intriguing derelict places in London/the south of the UK, I’m always interested to hear!

Tags: abandoned, asylums, derelict, girls' school, hellingly, hospitals, lillesden, royal alexandra, southlands, west park

Posted in Essays, musings on April 20th, 2010 | 17 Comments | Tweet This!