Georgian Car Wash - CC please

Designer · Dec 6, 2012

What you see:
Stamford, Lincolnshire, UK, is Georgian. Consequently, the local building code requires that new construction reflect the styling that is found in the earlier buildings. This is a shot of a car wash which is part of a petrol station in Stamford. As you can see, the inside is just a regular modern car wash, but the exterior is styled like a 17th century building.

Why I chose to make this photograph:
Wherever I am, I am often struck by irony, whether it is in people, places, or buildings. My architectural background has attuned my attention to buildings, but it is primarily the irony that captures my imagination. So we see what is essentially a modern gas station with car wash, designed to look older than even cars themselves.

How did I see this shot?
After a day of touring the East Midlands, needing some diesel and a quick wash-up on the way back to my son's home. There it was, a Georgian car wash in all its limestone cladding, just wanting to become a part of my collection of architectural irony.

What photographic equipment was used?
This was before I had purchased my first DSLR, so I was using my Canon PowerShot A570is, my trusty little P&S that I carried on more than one trip to Europe. The settings were; ISO 80, fl;6mm, 0ev, f/4, 1/200, AWB, JPEG.

What was my intent - what did I hope to show?
I wanted to show the juxtaposition of new and (intended to be) old and to show the resourcefulness of the architects who had to give a styling nod to the predominant style of architecture while providing a modern utilitarian facility.

What kind of PP-ing did I do?
Just a little lightening of the shadows to compensate for the fact that my camera's range did not capture much detail in the shadows.

Why did I make those choices?
I think I got a pretty good frame, considering that the building and the car are cropped, my attention was focused on the juxtaposition, and not the entire building, and certainly not the car. Therefore, I did no further editing of the frame, but the shadows lacked detail, so I boosted the shade areas inside the building a little bit.

Please tell me if I achieved my goal of showing the irony? Doing a re-shoot is unrealistic, so tell me (in retrospect) what else I might have done to achieve my goal. Thanks.

amolitor · Dec 6, 2012

I think your architectural background hurt you, here. You see what is obviously a Fake Georgian building, most of us see a car wash with some cheesy looking stone facing. It looks a little strange, but it doesn't hit me in the face as HA HA THAT'S RIDICULOUS!

Looking more closely at the building, I see there are some architectural notes on it that would probably give me a better sense of what you were going for, if they were more obviously shown. Probably a wider frame, and stepping more around to your left, would have helped here. Obviously, you don't want to lose the ridiculous modern signage, but I think giving us more roofline would have helped your idea out more. We all do this: we forget that what's clear to US is a mystery to the viewer, so we must make it STUPIDLY OBVIOUS and BLUNTLY IN YOUR FACE if we expect an unprimed viewer to "get it" at all.

Bitter Jeweler · Dec 6, 2012

I hate to say, it's not ironic to me, because I see this a lot. It seems to be a common trend for businesses coming into a particularly styled neighbor hood, that they blend in with their surroundings. Here in Cleveland, we even have a residential gas station, with it's garage under ground, and pumps below ground level, so driving by it appears to be a well landscaped park.

I have to agree with amolitor, that maybe. Wide angle would help the context?

thetrue · Dec 6, 2012

Bitter Jeweler said:
Here in Cleveland, we even have a residential gas station, with it's garage under ground, and pumps below ground level, so driving by it appears to be a well landscaped park.

I need to see this

Bitter Jeweler · Dec 6, 2012

It's a Marathon Station, in Lakewood, Ohio, on Lake Ave., if you want to try to google street view it.

thetrue · Dec 6, 2012

I'm on it as soon as I get home. I'll post the street view link

molested_cow · Dec 6, 2012

I can't stop thinking that if you put a cross on top of that roof, it will become a drive-thru church.

tirediron · Dec 6, 2012

Moved to the General Gallery.

Designer · Dec 7, 2012

Thanks, everyone for the replies. Yes, I see what amolitor and Bitter Jeweler have pointed out. I do see buildings in general through the eyes of an architect, and yes, I do tend to see things differently than other observers. While we have areas of our town under "historical preservation" guidelines, we still don't see anything done to this degree. I am looking forward to seeing the gas station example in the Cleveland area.

Frequency · Dec 7, 2012

I really felt the way Molested Cow had felt; that looks like a Church

Demers18 · Dec 8, 2012

I would tend to agree with what has been said above.
I understand your point of trying to portray the irony, which I do understand, but the image as a whole lacks substance. As amoliter mentioned above, I think this image could have been helped with a wide angle.

Designer · Dec 8, 2012

Demers18 said:
I would tend to agree with what has been said above.
I understand your point of trying to portray the irony, which I do understand, but the image as a whole lacks substance. As amoliter mentioned above, I think this image could have been helped with a wide angle.

Thanks for the critique. The lens was nearly at its widest at 6mm, and IRRC, only goes to 5.4mm.

If I go back, which is unlikely, I will be sure to have better equipment with me.

BTW: Here's a shot of the opposite side of the drive:

This shows another building pretty much identical to the car wash, again with a huge sign, a wall of windows, and the pumps being sheltered by a modern canopy. Note the shingles on the canopy; they are the same as on the other buildings.

Granted, these are not artistic shots, but I was struck by the adversarial relationship between the local building regulations and the desire to build a petrol station. Just the way I see things.

The loophole in the rules is apparently wide enough to drive a gas station through.

Derrel · Dec 8, 2012

I thought it was amusing...it looks like it's probably historically more or less accurate to the old-time, 17th century drive-through-wagon-washes. And then I see the mini-mart photo, showing the exact type of building(!!!!) where the 17th century folks probably stopped in to get their 32-oz sodas and copies of the daily newspapers for the Page 3 girls...errr...I mean so they could keep up on the football scores and such...I'm blown away by this lovely nostalgic sentiment they have there in that community!