Yesterday friend and fellow photographer Bob Clark (Robert H Clark) and I photographed in an abandoned silk mill in Lanaconing Maryland. We were part of a group of photographers on this outing organized by photographer Tony Sweet. The mill is in an advanced state of decay. It was abandoned in the 1950s leaving all equipment, records, and even personal belongings of employees. It was a fascinating look at at bygone era.

This particular image is of a combination stairway / elevator shaft between the first and second floors. This is a single frame image: no HDR, image fusion, or montaging of multiple exposures. This is not to imply criticism of those techniques, simply a statement about how this was made. Primary stuff used was: 21mm Zeiss Distagon ZE, Canon 5D Mk II, Aperture 3, Ps CS5.

Photography here is challenging in several ways. First, there is virtually no artificial light, and though there are large windows all around the building it is located in a narrow and steep-sided valley that gets little direct morning light this time of year. The result is long exposures and very deep shadows. As the sun does begin to light the windows the secondary problem of extreme dynamics in lighting becomes a serious issue. The brightness range far exceeds the ability of most contemporary cameras to preserve detail in the highlights and shadows in one exposure.

Next, because of the close quarters imposed by all the equipment, large scale images face the additional challenge of requiring extreme depth of field (for non-photographers, this is sharp focus from close to far away).

The other problem we faced was cold! It was below freezing inside the building for most if not all of the morning. But it was fun! I’ll be posting more images over the next few weeks.