Northwood Asylum

kts · January 3, 2008

Howdy, hopefully this is in the right area, I'm a wee bit new to the site. I found it thanks to schmoo who I know thanks to the UE world. I got into exploring a little over a year ago and since they I've gotten more and more into photography.

I'm trying to get out of UEing so much and more into photography so I figured I should start hanging out on more photography based sites.

These were from last week when I took a road trip with my good friend Steve. Cold weather, icy landscapes, asbestos, and collapsing floors were all part of the fun. I also got to break out my new toy and try it out. I got a Nikon D300 just before the trip and WOW what an improvement over my old D50. My poor laptop can barely handle the images (and I'm still shooting in JPG!) so I think a new laptop is going to be coming soon...

Feeling blue

Hard 8

Bed

Hot rodz

Dirty water

Chair pileup

Take a seat

Here works too

This is another option (WB-corrected one here but it's not nearly as creepy... http://solberg.umd.edu/UE/northwood/coffin1.jpg)

Watch out, the floors, they are collapsing

Go this way instead

Leave a note on the desk

EAT ME

Empty

Hallway fun pt 1

Hallway fun pt 2

Light

Life among the death

Numb3rs

Oops (didn't realize I was exposed when the person next to me took a shot and light painted. Came out kinda neat.)

Pictures

Porthole

Tiny

Toxic

Tres

Twins

Wheelchair

Windows

Yellow

Grizzle6 · January 3, 2008

Man these posts always freak me out. Interesting stuff--and nice compositions on a lot of these images.

schmoo · January 3, 2008

Kev!! I'm surprised and so happy to see you here.

I'm so glad that you're not only getting out and shooting more but the quality of your shots has gone through the roof over the last few months. I hope that you continue to learn about photography and that you can find whatever assistance you need.

Oh, and keep posting. Don't be a stranger here -- these are fantastic!

kelsow · January 3, 2008

LOVE this kind of stuff.

Show us more if you have any.

Thanks for posting.

JenGrace · January 3, 2008

Welcome to the forum. I look forward to seeing more!

Pat664422 · January 4, 2008

Very interesting series... looks like a good movie set for a Blair Witch Project sequel... thanks for sharing!

kts · January 4, 2008

thanks for the warm welcome everyone!

schmoo wrote:

Kev!! I'm surprised and so happy to see you here.

I'm so glad that you're not only getting out and shooting more but the quality of your shots has gone through the roof over the last few months. I hope that you continue to learn about photography and that you can find whatever assistance you need.

Oh, and keep posting. Don't be a stranger here -- these are fantastic!

Thanks Steph!

Thanks for the compliments, I've been trying to get more into photography and improving my shots in the last few months. I've been having a lot of fun tinkering with settings and playing with night photography, etc. Not to mention FINALLY starting to post process my work. I know I fought it off for so long but it really does help. I'm still a n00b with it (still using The Gimp) but I'm slowly starting to learn more about the power of post processing.

I figure I need to get out of the UE realm a bit and expand what I take photos of so hopefully this site can give me some good inspiration, although so far I seem to keep finding AWESOME photos of stuff out west and I just don't have the $ for a trip out there right now.

I really do want to take some awesome photos of the desert/night photos out there where I won't have to worry about light pollution, etc.

kelsow wrote:

LOVE this kind of stuff.

Show us more if you have any.

Thanks for posting.

I'm still processing the rest of my photos from this trip, will hopefully get another set up this weekend. I have most of my stuff here: http://solberg.umd.edu/UE/ it's mostly an image dump for now but I'm slowly working on a proper website for it all. I haven't signed up with SmugMug yet but I keep thinking I should. Maybe after I pay off some Holiday bills.

schmoo · January 4, 2008

kts wrote:

I figure I need to get out of the UE realm a bit and expand what I take photos of so hopefully this site can give me some good inspiration, although so far I seem to keep finding AWESOME photos of stuff out west and I just don't have the $ for a trip out there right now. I really do want to take some awesome photos of the desert/night photos out there where I won't have to worry about light pollution, etc.

I sympathize with the, um, fairly uninspiring landscape around here. I keep my eyes peeled for good scenes but very few present themselves in a 1-hour radius. Thinking back on all the places I've shot over the last few months, almost none of them have been locally.

Meant to hit up the Shenandoahs last fall when the leaves were changing but I got too busy.

: Night photography is awesome - were you thinking of stuff star trails? Because in the cities on a clear night you can still get some decent views. More rural areas though... maybe out west by Hagerstown?

If you get a chance to do something like your Tokyo trip again that would be awesome! Especially with the new setup and the new knowledge.

Don't forget about all the tutes and stuff on here, as well as all the knowledge that folks share, here and beyond. There's more than cheeburgas on the web! *ducks*

digitalpins · January 4, 2008

wow awesome photos I love the the photo with the all those school desk and the one with the coffin..

great photos and thanks for sharing

kts · January 4, 2008

schmoo wrote:

Meant to hit up the Shenandoahs last fall when the leaves were changing but I got too busy. : Night photography is awesome - were you thinking of stuff star trails? Because in the cities on a clear night you can still get some decent views. More rural areas though... maybe out west by Hagerstown?

If you get a chance to do something like your Tokyo trip again that would be awesome! Especially with the new setup and the new knowledge.

Yea I also wanted to get some fall folliage in but forgot.

And yea I love that shot of the mesa where you focused on the North star and all the other stars moved in a circle around it. I think you said it was like an hour long exposure.

I tried this when the power went out at my house a few weeks back:

It's a 10 minute exposure taken in the part of my development where they are still building so there would be no lights. The power did come on a few times so the houses/street lights in my section ended up lighting up the trees a bit and the sky. Nearby Arundel Mills had power the whole time which also gave some light pollution.

I'll have to go out by where I grew up and see if the night sky is more forgiving out that way, should be since it's all farm land.

And after seeing your Tokyo shots I really wish I could go back and do it all over again. Althought I never want to be on a plane for 14 hours ever again with what I've learned in the last year I'm sure my shots would be SO much better then when I was there a year go. Ah well I still have fun and it gives me a reason to go back I guess.

schmoo wrote:

Don't forget about all the tutes and stuff on here, as well as all the knowledge that folks share, here and beyond. There's more than cheeburgas on the web! *ducks*

Seriously though I have been reading up a lot more on photo rules and tips. Even Steve has helped turn me into a photo snob/geek.

kts · January 4, 2008

digitalpins wrote:

wow awesome photos I love the the photo with the all those school desk and the one with the coffin..

great photos and thanks for sharing

thanks! the more i look at it i think the shot with the school desks is my favorite from the trip and i'm tempted to get it printed at 11x14 or so to hang on my wall. the only problem is that i'm starting to run out of wall space to hang all these up.

schmoo · January 4, 2008

kts wrote:

thanks! the more i look at it i think the shot with the school desks is my favorite from the trip and i'm tempted to get it printed at 11x14 or so to hang on my wall. the only problem is that i'm starting to run out of wall space to hang all these up.

And you just bought a new house!

kts · January 4, 2008

schmoo wrote:

And you just bought a new house!

time to move again i guess!

my roommate has also been complaining that all my photos are creeping him out.

kitvan · January 4, 2008

wow. :jawdrop
beautiful and creepy

gus · January 4, 2008

Chrissiebeez_NL · January 5, 2008

love the set especially since its in an asylum, which makes it even creepier!

very nicely done!

arroyoshark · January 6, 2008

kts - this is a very impressive series. Good work ! I came a bit late to this showing but wanted to give you a thumbs up. In reviewing, a comment I might make is that you might want to consider cleaning up the perspectives a little bit (converging/diverging vertical lines).

You work reminded me of something I saw a while back in a Santa Fe gallery and it took me a bit to recall it. You should really check out Stephen Wilkes "Ellis Island" portfolio.

Here: www.monroegallery.com/showcase/wilkes_ellisisland.cfm

You both think along the same lines.

Patweb · January 6, 2008

Wow !!!
Very nice pictures man !
well done !
Only one thing, you really have to considder to clean your house man !
this is a mess !

darryl · January 7, 2008

Nice work. Reminiscent of an exhibition I saw few years back by Katherine Westerhout:

http://www.katwest.com/arch_ny.html

ulrikft · January 7, 2008

stupid question: UE? :P

Great pictures btw! Nice eye for detail.

CookieS · January 7, 2008

very intriguing images, I like the use of perspective, and they all seem well lit, was that light filtering in? How about some technical info. and what lens were they shot with.

kts · January 7, 2008

thanks again everyone!

ulrikft wrote:

stupid question: UE? :P

UE = urban exploring, basically exploring old abandoned buildings and taking photos of whatever I find.

CookieS wrote:

very intriguing images, I like the use of perspective, and they all seem well lit, was that light filtering in? How about some technical info. and what lens were they shot with.

It's all natural light + longer exposures while on a tripod. It got cloudy and the sun went down quick towards the end so I had do a bit of post processing to make them less blue and also lighten them up a tad.

These are all with my new Nikon D300 and Tokina 12-24 f/4.

I use The Gimp for post processing but mostly that's just resizing, sharpening, and adding the border. I started to use Curves a bit for a few of them which was an interesting exercise. I'd like to get Photoshop/Lightroom but I don't have the budget for it or a new laptop to handle these huge images yet. (I got the D300 about a week before I went to this place, I've been using a D50 for the last year.)

Played a lot with Aperture priority this time around, most of these were shot at f/5.6 or f/6.3. I find that was helping me keep most of the shot in focus so I could translate what it was actually like to be there in the room into the photo.

Northwood Asylum

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