The Power Station Steps

[AnonymousKiwi1]

I was very taken with the absolute industrial-ness of the Mangahao Power Station building, opened in 1924.


I was thinking of the Geometry Assignment when I framed this shot.



I had to shoot through a wire fence - hence the gray blurs in the corners.
I cropped square, converted to B&W.
Upped the black levels then sharpened a whole lot with the High Pass filter.

My aim was to bring out the rugged, worn but strong architectural nature of this stair rail.



I didn't get my act together soon enough to enter in the weekly assingment, but I'm still pleased I made the effort.

[tal_ninio]

Love the density achieved here.
Very good B&W conversion.
A little bit "over sharpened" to my eyes...

[cmletts]

Agree with Tal_ninio.

It seems to me that the concrete texture of the walls is a bit overwhelming (maybe oversharpened?) - it's really drawing my attention away from the weathered railway.

Looks like a great place to shoot. Too bad there's a fence in the way - definitely an added challenge.

[AnonymousKiwi1]

Originally Posted by tal_ninio

Love the density achieved here.
Very good B&W conversion.
A little bit "over sharpened" to my eyes...

Originally Posted by cmletts

Agree with Tal_ninio.

It seems to me that the concrete texture of the walls is a bit overwhelming (maybe oversharpened?) - it's really drawing my attention away from the weathered railway.

Looks like a great place to shoot. Too bad there's a fence in the way - definitely an added challenge.

Thanks for your comments. I think you might be right about the oversharpening, now I look again on a larger screen. I do sometimes get carried away.

[NgaiHill]

Nice shot Lisa, I love the textures and geometric patterns. My one comment though is I feel that you've cropped a little close - maybe its just because there's a before to compare. But what do I know anyway?
I love the industrialness of powerstations too. I live within shooting distance of the three big ones on the Waitaki River, in fact my father used to be an operator at Benmore Power Station - it is such classic 1960's industrial architecture - love it! And the control room at the Waitaki Power Station further down the river is so typical 1930's, it almost looks like the inside of the old TARDIS.

[NgaiHill]

Just remembered that I took a couple of photos of this power station when I was up there in 2006. Wish I knew then what I know now about photography. Taken on my Pentax Z10 film SLR, hope you don't mind me throwing this in here.



I didn't even notice those steps at the time, just took a couple of quick snapshots.

[AnonymousKiwi1]

Hi Lisa

I only cropped it in so close to get rid of the bits of fence in the shot. It'd be cool to visit some time when there were some staff there, and get permission to shoot from inside the fence!

You know, it used to drive my brother and I crazy that my Dad would have to stop at every power station we drove by when we were on holiday. And now I'm doing it to my kids.

I see they had the water running when you were there - it was just a green slimey trickle when we visited. I bet the white water is spectacular to see under the canoeing course.

[NgaiHill]

Yeah, I realised after I made the comment about the crop that that was probably the reason you did it.
It rained almost non-stop the whole week we were up there, I'd gone for a run up that road from the place we were staying at in Shannon and was a bit surprised to find the power station there. So lots of water in the river - I'm afraid it didn't leave a favourable impression of the weather in the Manawatu
Its a place I'd love to revisit if I ever got up that way again.

[happyme]

Good shot, but could have been better if you had moved a bit to your right!