Beyond the Tunnels…
by Rodney Campbell on Aug.02, 2016, under Life, Photography
I went exploring the ruins of this amazing site the the Glen Davis Works. This included some judicious exploration of the abandoned buildings and tunnels right up the hill above the site.
Growing Out
One aspect of this was to explore what was beyond some of the tunnels and channels I found. I actually original saw the item in the image above from way above it on the hill. It looked like two very large square funnels side by side. This looked like some sort of huge hopper made of concrete – presumably mined shale was somehow fed into these.
What I’ve done for this shot was to go below the hopper and look upwards with the fisheye lens up through the hole at the bottom. The view from below shows the hole entrance and then the inside of the concrete hopper before reaching the open space to the sky. This particular one had a small tree growing up through the middle of the hole. Thankfully it had a bare trunk and only right up at the top of the tree were there branches and leaves. I thought it made for an interesting and somewhat unusual subject and composition.
Sliding
This tunnel like area was within the ruins up on the side of the hill. It’s actually pretty close to the hoppers in the previous shot. This one’s pretty simple with a shot setup to look straight down the barrel of the tunnel. I’m not exactly sure what that crazy ugly stuff on the ceiling is. I think it’s something insect made… I shudder to think…
Back to those fantastic firetubes in the retort building. This time I’ve kept the fisheye lens for an even wider view from directly below the four sets of chimney tubes.
Vortex