Assignment Five.

Assignment Five.

Personal Project.

A Derelict Industrial Site at Hammill, near Sandwich, Kent.

The idea for using Hammill brick works for this project came during a visit I made to it with a friend. He knew of the site and thought I might be interested.  These ruins are a little of what is left of the industrial past of East Kent.  The coal mines are long gone and  the only bit of the East Kent Light Railway is the heritage line at Shepherdswell near Dover.

A walk round the site gave me reason to think there was sufficient here to fulfil the requirements of the assignment.  

The engine sheds at Hammill are he best preserved parts of the site.  The rail tracks are long gone but the height of the main doors and the roof give a clue as their former use.

The windows are an architectural joy.  These buildings are, after all, only engine sheds yet someone thought about shape and proportion and not just the function. 
The second image is of three windows as they look out across a space to the windows of the the second shed.  

The next features one window looking through the neighbouring window and out to the neighbouring window.  I framed this in a number of ways but settled on this as made the large window the feature but allowed the eye to go through not only to the next window but the third which in turn gives a glimpse of the scene beyond.

Here are the two engine sheds.  The shadow thrown against the far shed by the chimneys on the near one are a reminder of the steam engines that once resided inside.  This was taken close up on a 7-14 lens and then straightened in Photoshop using transform/distort.

The second series of pictures are from the brick works themselves. 

The first of these is of the front of the building.  The corrugated sheeting lent itself to black and white.  This gave me the opportunity to enhance the sky without altering the rest of the image.  This is an image that could have been taken in the USA during the crash or eastern Europe after the walls came down.  It is an image of final closure.

Inside the building, as outside, nature is starting to take over.  This image is of a smithy's forge that now has ferns growing in it.  They are a green reminder of the red flames that once rose from the same spot.  

This part of Kent is remarkably free of graffiti so this persons efforts raised a smile.  He had to hide his work inside a derelict building in the middle of nowhere to feel like a, "comic book super hero".

The fire door is one of a line the stretch the whole length of the main furnace.  I took a number of shots featuring both many doors and single doors but this one seems to sum up the dereliction best. Somehow the site of a steel oven door still raises a chill and is a reminder of such ovens in other places that were put to a grimmer use. 

This is an odd image as what we have is an empty room in a derelict building that someone has swept clean.  Other than me standing up the broom,  it is as found.  The scene outside the window was completely blown so I masked it and brought down the exposure.  Once again a beautifully engineered window.

The building was full of old instruments, many of which I photographed, but it was this one which I finally chose as it seems to be still working and measuring the temperature of this long dead site.

I returned to the site at a later date to take images in different lighting conditions, namely early morning with a low sun.  This allowed me to redo my original engine shed picture and look for new angles.  The image below was set up by me to take advantage of the low sun and the make the most of the textures of the rake and the old table.

The last image is of a gas control cut off valve.  At some time in the 2008 this lever was turned to SHUT/RESET for the last time never to be reset.

When one thinks of Kent certain images are sure to be in ones mind; orchards, farming, The Medway and let's not forget the seaside.  What one tends to forget its industrial past; coal mining, ship building, fishing and brick making.  The east side of Kent is littered with reminders of this industrial past with the remains of long closed collieries and the attendant industries of electricity production and light railways.  

One of the industries that grew as a result of the availability of cheap power and transport was brick making at Hammill.  Access to good quality clay was the third required element.  With the capping of the last Kent mine in 1989 the light railway was no longer needed and it also closed.  Brick making continued until 2008 but the isolated situation and poor local roads meant that in the end Hammill had little choice but to cease production.  Many buildings and features, however, still remain.

The best preserved of these are the engine sheds.  These were the terminal of a branch of the East Kent Light Railway.  The tracks have long gone but their tall doors indicate their past use.  The sun streaming through the windows gives them a feeling of space and are reminiscent of old churches.

On the day I returned to take the photographs the sky was pretty clear and the sun light strong.  This gave me problems in taking some of the inside shots.  The roof is in poor repair and bright light streamed in giving harsh contrast to the dark interior.  If I exposed for the shadows the bright areas were burned out.  There were shots of the interior that just could not be taken and some that were taken that were not usable.  Others I was able to manipulate in Photoshop.  I will be returning to this site in overcast conditions to take more images. 

Because of the dark interior and required depth of field I was working with exposures of up to twenty seconds.  This necessitated the use of a sturdy tripod.  The noise that was generated by the long exposures was dealt with in Photoshop.  The shot that pleases me most is the fern in the smithy where the green of the leaves replaces the red of the flames.  This was an extremely dark space that took a very long exposure.

I think I stuck to my original brief and recorded images that give an impression of the site as it is now.

What would I do differently?  A little more research on the site.  I will be returning to the site,  and when I do I will have a better idea of what I want and how I will obtain it.  I will ensure that there is no strong sunlight and record more of the remaining machinery that I was unable to photograph during this visit because of the harsh light contrast.