Abandoned hotel set for "Afterlife" project.

itsbudda · Jul 16, 2010

This place was super eerie. Everything left exactly as it was when they closed. I've been working on a little series called Afterlife, set exclusively in various abandonments, highlighting details of day to day life, but long after. As always critique is wanted. I'd like to do a gallery showing of this series eventually and would hate to put up something bad.

Pardon our mess

A bite to eat

The Presentation

Working The Bar

Table for Three Please

Checking In

Adult Swim

Not really part of the series but I love this picture too much to not post

LaFoto · Jul 17, 2010

You really plan on doing a gallery showing of these? No kidding?

Either they are not in focus, or the lighting is all inedequate, I'm afraid.
Other than that this place may have been abandoned and therefore eerie to you when you were there (which doesn't transpire), they are just some snaps of empty rooms, poorly composed, with heaps of technical flaws. Sorry, but ... no.

Robin Usagani · Jul 17, 2010

+1
I am guessing you took some of these with your pop up flash.

LaFoto said:
You really plan on doing a gallery showing of these? No kidding?

Either they are not in focus, or the lighting is all inedequate, I'm afraid.
Other than that this place may have been abandoned and therefore eerie to you when you were there (which doesn't transpire), they are just some snaps of empty rooms, poorly composed, with heaps of technical flaws. Sorry, but ... no.

ghache · Jul 17, 2010

zomg bbqsauce.

itsbudda · Jul 17, 2010

Thanks for the comments. A little more negative than I had hoped for but I need to hear the bad too. Anyway about the gallery I said the series. I never said these particular shots. I just wanted to hear what everybody dislikes/likes to help decide what to include. I've only been shooting seriously for about a year and I'd still consider myself a beginner so this is far off in the distance, like after I finish college.

The lighting in there was very ****ty. I blame some (only some) of the poor quality on the lens. It's the ****ty 18-55 that came with my D40x. The lens is very soft. The black and white ones were negative scans taken with Tri-X. I didn't use the pop up flash at all. I used 30 second exposures and a little led flashlight, with a little PS color balance correction. I may have been better off with the flash, but nothing screams to the cops "hey I'm here!" quite like popping off a camera flash near open windows. If I wanted to do that I would have brought this monster flash with me.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i41/itsbudda/random/DSC_0199.jpg

I don't know exactly what you meant by zomg bbqsauce but It was good for a chuckle.

Anyway it's unfortunate nobody has anything nice to say about my pictures but keep the comments coming. I'd like to hear a little more specifically what I'm doing wrong besides just "technical flaws and poorly composed." What technical flaws? How could I have composed it better? I was more hoping for suggestions on ways to improve but instead you guys are just calling my photos bad and claiming I've failed at my purpose without really telling me how I've failed. I guess I can assume though I need stronger subjects and better lighting.

LaFoto · Jul 17, 2010

Well, lighting and SHARPNESS would AT LEAST need to be similar to

here or

here or

Pics_4,_9_and_10_here ... just for example.

c.cloudwalker · Jul 17, 2010

Although I agree with LaFoto that the eeriness you felt doesn't transpire, I am not worried about sharpness or lighting. When you mention gallery showing, to me, it means art and in art anything goes. It is really up to the artist whether or not the image is as sharp as it could be, whether or not the lighting is as good as it could be.

So long, that is, as you meant them to be this way. If they are not sharp and badly lit because you don't really know what you're doing, that is another story. Although one that some people have gotten away with, lol.

So, anyway, my biggest problem with your images is that they are not eerie. There is a huge thread here somewhere about abandoned places/UE that you may want to look at. There is also potential with this place for some staged shots of ghosts or something but those just don't do it.

Not for me anyway.

itsbudda · Jul 17, 2010

c.cloudwalker said:
So, anyway, my biggest problem with your images is that they are not eerie. There is a huge thread here somewhere about abandoned places/UE that you may want to look at. There is also potential with this place for some staged shots of ghosts or something but those just don't do it.

Not for me anyway.

Yeah they're not that eerie. I didn't really mean them to be. I was actually kinda going for that old distant memory feeling, but I may have failed at that too. I'm trying to highlight life by using absence of it. I wanted more dark tones in the backgrounds and to highlight my subjects (another reason why like using a flashlight to paint my subjects.) I could use to photoshop these a bit, but I try to leave my pictures alone for the most part.

When I said it was eerie I was merely commenting on how weird it is to still see food remnants in the kitchen and mints on the tables, still made (and still unmade) beds. Perhaps bizarre would be a better term. You'd really think people were coming in to work there tomorrow if the place didn't smell so bad.

c.cloudwalker · Jul 17, 2010

I understand what you are saying but it just doesn't translate in the photos.

Years ago I photographed an abandoned hospital (I was there to steal X-ray viewing boxes which make great light tables, lol) and the shots where so bad that I never showed any of them. They just didn't convey the feeling of the place.

Feelings just don't always translate into good photos.

white · Jul 17, 2010

I agree with cloud; there is no atmosphere to these photos. I wouldn't have known these were taken in an abandoned 'anything' if it wasn't for the description, and that means the photos failed to communicate. I realize 'atmosphere' is a rather intangible quality to photographs and hard to fix, but there are some techniques you could have tried, such as multiple exposures to create a ghostly feel.

Also, some of these photos are just not good compositions. Why does the ceiling in #3 fill 1/3 of the frame? What is the most interesting part of that scene -- is it the ceiling or the empty chairs?

#6 is crooked, and it doesn't look like it's for any artistic purpose. It just looks sloppy.

itsbudda · Jul 18, 2010

Yeah I rushed a little too much and didn't pay enough attention to composition. I'm picking up all kinds of really bad habits from my souvenier green screen photography job.

I stand by #3 in that I was trying to have the attention drawn to the empty front of the room and tried to use the lines of the ceiling to help with that.

Obviously it's unanimous these photos are awful (although i still like the last one alot) and the more I look at them the more I agree. Next time I'll try to shoot with some substance instead of relying on emptiness to evoke a message.

white · Jul 18, 2010

Well, it is kind of hard to create atmosphere in a photograph. I've seen a lot of artists attempt this 'style' (successfully) by using cameras like a Holga, or even Polaroid, because the images these cameras produce lend themselves to this dreamy/eerie effect.