Returning to Old Themes

Those of you who have known me for many years and have known about my photography for a long time will remember how much I used to photograph the town my mother lives in.  I haven't really done any for a long time.  Partly because I haven't had a good camera for a while, and partly because I haven't been up there much.  I have tried to take photos with my little point and click, but you can't control anything with that. 

This last week I went back up to my mothers place, in Woomelang.  It is a very small country town, of less than 200 people, I think.  It looks old, but really no older than any other town in the area.  It was once a thriving town, but not anymore.  The community is mainly older people.  Not many shops there now, basically just the local community store and one pub.

I have to admit that my view of the town is from my mothers and is probably not a broad view.  When I travel there I come across a quiet town that looks like it is closing down slowly.  Every time I go there there are things gone, or pulled down.  Buildings that were being used and are no longer.  Things that have fallen down. 

There are two places I have concentrated on, one is a really old shearing shed on the outskirts of town, the second is the train stations and wheat silos.  Both are located not far from each other. 

The shearing shed, or the old maids shed, no idea why the name, is one of the first buildings you see when you come into town.  It used to be the old abattoirs, but that is completely gone.  I don't have any idea of when it was built, or even why it was built.  It is made of sheets of tin, which are now rusting, and gives the shed its lovely colour. 

This photo is from the front, it is what you see from the road.  Inside it smells of dead sheep and wool.  For those that don't know shearing sheds, the little gaps at the front are where the sheep are pushed out after they have been sheared/shorn.

I took some black and white photos of the shed about 12 or 13 years old and there was one that proved to be popular.  It was a photo of the doors at the back, where the sheep are first herded into the shearing shed.

I am pretty certain this image was taken at around the same time of day, it was late afternoon and the sun was pouring in through all the cracks. 

I can't remember if the doors were worse than this, but you can see that they do seem to be deteriorating.  I would imagine that they would be very hard to open.

I don't know if it is being used at all now.  Doors have fallen down and it doesn't look too safe.  Though, it was surprisingly clean inside, so who knows.  I think it was a hang out for local kids to party at at some time, though don't know if they still do, they clean up after themselves if they do. 

The next photo is of the same doors, however taken from a different angle and shows a lot more of the inside of the building.

I played with the settings on the camera here and I put it through photoshop, and tried to highlight the colour.  I love the way the rust comes though and seems to flood the whole image.   You can see the light flooding in everywhere.

You can get a good look at the floor here and the way there are gaps in the floor.  This is where the sheep are first brought in.

This is the area where the shearers work.  The sheep are brought out from the yards on the left, and you can't see them here, but the shearers work on the right.  At the back, towards that other door, is where the wool is classed and baled. 

I have no idea why the wool is on the ground.  Perhaps left there because it was no good, I don't know.  The metal contraption you can see in distance to the right is the wool baler, and that where the wool is baled into bags for shipping.  Not a fun place to get trapped in, as some friends did to me at their shearing shed when I was a kid.

In between the shearing shed and my mothers house is the train station.  I'm sure with many country towns the train station is also where the grain silos are.

They are always very large, or very tall buildings, and if you were allowed to go up to the top would offer the best view of all that surrounds it.  Especially since it is so flat up there.  I did get to go up once, when I was in grade 3, I think it was, in Quambatook.  Our teacher organised for us to go up the top of the silos and look around at what happens up there and we got to look at onto the town.  Couldn't see us being allowed to do that now.  Too many health and safety issues.

My mother was telling me how a company did not came around and build the silos, that plans were given out and eat town built their own.  Interesting.

One of the things I love about driving around in the mallee is that the silos always stand as massive sticks letting you know where they are.  You can see them for miles and as kids we always had competitions to see who could see the silos first.

From a distance they don't look that tall and opposing, but when you get up close to them you are totally dwarfed by them.  They are so much bigger than you think they will be.

I love looking straight up at them.  This photo doesn't give you a real idea of how big they are, but it is hard to do that in a photo.

I took this photo with the camera almost down on the ground.  I couldn't look through it, so just pointed it in the general direction of where I wanted the photo.  I took several shots.  I decided this was the best of them.  I still had to cut my head out of them.  Unfortunately my head ended up in all them, wide angle lens really are wide. 

Experimenting with different angles is a must.  I always feel disappointed when I get home and look at the photos and am disppointed because I missed a shot, then again, it also gives me a reason to go back.

I do enjoy going back to the same places again and again to take photos.  You start to learn when it is good to take photos, and when the light will be perfect.  Recapture changes in the things you are photographing.  Also capture those shots that you missed the first time, or stuffed up.