Urban exploration – or any exploration – has been off the agenda for me for several months now due to my limited mobility.
I haven’t talked about it much here on my blog, but if you are subscribed to my occasional newsletters, you’ll know I have an ongoing hip issue that requires a hip replacement. Without going into detail, it all started with a fall a couple of years ago, and X-rays show that I have avascular necrosis in my right femur and severe arthritis in the hip joint.
Now my right leg is shorter than my left – I walk with a limp and the aid of a walking stick and am in constant pain.
With New Zealand’s free public health system in disarray, I may be waiting for my operation for a few more months yet.
As I am limited to about 10 minutes of continuous walking, I have started to take photodrives, rather than photowalks, and yesterday I did a bit of urban exploration by car.
I drove to a part of town where I thought I ight capture a few urban exploration type images – you know the type – a bit dirty, a bit harsh, a bit grungy – and here is what I came up with.
Urban Exploration
“…..the exploration of manmade structures, usually abandoned ruins or hidden components of the manmade environment. (Wikipedia).
After parking, I climbed out of the car and wandered – or limped – around the immediate vicinity looking for a shot. A couple wandered into this scene and stood for several minutes looking at a map and their phones. I crossed the road and asked if they needed directions to somewhere. They were an American couple looking for one of our local walkways. I happily sent them on their way with a warning that the walkway they were looking for was probably still closed after a severe storm at the end of October.
Back to the car, and I spotted this and decided to see what I could make of it.
I thought about converting Under the bridge to black-and-white, but instead decided to use a preset I had created in DxO Photolab, and tweak things from there. I like the symmetry of the scene.
One Way and One Way 2 were taken just around the corner from the bridge shot.
Again, these two were taken with a black-and-white conversion in mind, but I stuck with my DxO preset based on the Harman Phoenix film simulation in DxO FilmPack.
Before I go any further with this story, I think it’s fair to tell you that I am a DxO affiliate, by their invitation, meaning that if you click on any link to DxO here, and purchase, I may receive a small commission. Buy using the code RickH15 at the checkout, you’ll get 15% discount on full products – i.e. not upgrades.
The first thought that crossed my mind when I saw the brand new roller door above was “…why install a brand new roller door in a decrepit old building?“.
I still don’t have an answer…
Back into the car and a wee drive down the road for this series of three photos.
I tried to line up the downward slope of the fence with the angle of the riverbank and also the roofline of the building opposite.
If you have managed to read down this far – thanks for getting here.
I hope you have enjoyed my story and photographs, and weill be happy to drop by again soon
Please feel free to comment below with your thoughts – good or bad. I really appreciate any feedback I get.