metal; sheet; forming; dusty; dirty; old; vintage; shop

Often I will go somewhere to shoot that I have never visited before. A few weeks ago I decided to go down to the Los Angeles/Long Beach harbors. I was thinking big container ships, oil barges, and who knows, some big machinery. Many areas were closed to the public. Upon leaving, my identical twin brother, Tom, who was with me, spotted this sheet metal shop, and one of its doors were open. Big mistake, we had to see what this was all about. It looked like no one had lifted a broom in 50 years. The place was barely functioning, with dirt, dust, and grime 1”-2” thick in places. You kicked up dust as you walked. Jobs were left stuck in metal-bending monsters, or in partial cuts on milling machines. The owner was thrilled to have us take pictures. I love a place with lots of detail. My biggest problem was narrowing down the options. What initially attracted me to this corner was the shelving on the right and all its nails, bolts, eye bolts, metal shavings, and cutting oils. The windows were looking glorious as the dirt diffused the light entering this dark space. The linear weed just outside the building, mimicked a graceful drawing in defiance of the chaos inside. A perfect zen moment. It was difficult getting the right composition. I do not like rearranging stuff on location. You run the risk of breaking something. Better to figure out another way to get the shot. It was filthy, but this place generated many photographs I liked. Then you come home and spend the next few days post-processing the images. The amount of dust and grime was not coming through. I decided to give the image a “treatment.” There wasn’t much color to the place anyway, mostly gray. It looked better in black and white with a touch of blue. Since the exterior light was super bright as compared to the dim interior, the artifacting was disturbing and annoying. All attempts to get rid of it or reduce the color or electronic drain (or grain) looked terrible. HDR was not possible as this corner scene was not letting me set up a tripod. I had to handhold my camera. Thank god for high ISOs, but more grain. I’ll deal with it later. The end result is what you see here. The feeling is my interpretation of the reality.