Pigeon House..

Following the path described in previous post 'Baths' I would like to show here a few more of my old photographs which are research materials only but still worth a look.
Before my several visits to Dun Laoghaire and Blackrock baths I snicked into completely different structure - Victorian power station also known as a Pigeon House, where electricity strted to be generated in 1903.  
This plant was decommissioned in 1976, when new power station Poolbeg (still known locally as the Pigeon House) was constructed. .
You can have a look at a few more images from that place I posted here straight after my visit about 4 years ago. Here is the LINK 
This place has an amazing potential for everyone who likes exploring and industrial photography. The only limitation is an access ...officially forbidden and what's comes with it - very limited amount of time you can spend there if you manage to get inside.
 

 

 

 

 

 

...forbidden place?

- ‘You could find much more interesting object for your images’
- ‘well, I know it’s bizarre but I really like it’
- ‘we all likes different things’

haha...that was a short but very suggestive conversation with a lady walking her dog on the beach two days ago. 

That was really weird feeling seeing people looking at me when I was photographing 

industrial area beside Dublin Port. They all have been there to enjoy the view behind my shoulders...I was the only 'freak' fascinated by the large chimneys and steal structures around them ;) Industrial landscapes can be attractive not only for people who are bored or tired with the things usually recognized as beautiful.
The mystery, desolation and power of such a places is something excessively appealing.
It’s a fantastic area however not very friendly ...
I am talking here about the energy of this place rather then anything else.

Last Saturday it was my third trip in there and not the last one I am afraid...
In-fact, I've been there with camera twice before - once over a year ago in the same place (photographs are somewhere on my facebook webpage) and second time in 2009 when I visited old Pigeon House (click HERE please to see photographs). 
The Power Station and all industrial objects around is located in Dublin Bay, close to Irishtown Nature Park and Sandymount Strand. Contrasty place - very nice seaside with Wicklow Mountains view, green, quite and attractive neighbourhood ...and a few hundreds meters away, behind high fens - industrial plants.

I live just a 15 minutes cycling from there so distance is not a problem. There is however something else which I don't really understand. Something which makes this place impossible to photograph in the way i want...
After my first trip I wasn't happy with taken photographs. It obviously wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. OK, fair enough.
I went there the following weekend and...another two hours of shooting wasted. Unexpected elements appears on most of the negatives which makes them useless.
...So third approach... and here we go again - this times 6 out of 12 negatives were incorrectly fitted in holders and photographs came out - let’s say not very straight. A few from the other 6 have mentioned before marks on them again...

Processing was done correctly, all chemicals were fresh and properly mixed. 

This time I took even a few sheets of different film then the one I am usually using...
I am shooting with large format for almost 2 years. I know that mistakes can happen especially with this type of equipment but not 3 times in the row...and It’s never happened to me before. Not in that way.

Strange coincidence...
I am just thinking - what is going on with this place? 

Dublin Port (fragment) and the area of Pigeon House Power Station*

*photograph from Google Maps

I may go there once again next weekend anyway.

Please note: presented here photographs are the only (out of about 30 taken during 3 visits) which are close enough to my idea how it should look like and they are technically OK...

...into the past

In the last months of 2009 I worked on the project "traces of human existence". When wandering through places that could serve as a good material for the project I visited a wonderful old victorian building - The Pigeon House Power Station. This place made a great impression on me. Its space, atmosphere, emptiness and silence encompassing it ...

In the first moment I didn’t know where to start as almost every corner was worth photographing. Even though only one of the pigeon house photographs made a place in the final draft, the remaining has created other interesting mini-series.