Industrial Black and White Photography

Now that I am nearing the final weeks of my photography course, I decided that I wanted to get out and do some black and white photography.

After pondering for a while I decided that some old abandoned industrial estates would be a great place to do this. However not being one for illegally trespassing, my girlfriend managed to discover Cockatoo Island in the heart of Sydney. Essentially Cockatoo Island is abandoned industrial estate, for the most part it is accessible, there are some areas that have been blocked off to public access as they are extremely unsafe, therefore I chose to steer clear of such areas.

I came out with the following photos which I thought would look great in black and white (or in some cases sepia). These are just a few selections, the full black and white gallery has some additional photos in it and in some cases different angles of the same subject.

This first photo I found to be really quite catching, it almost looks as though it was taken 30 or 40 years ago. Generally I do like to keep my subject matter simple, however in this case I thought that the additional industrial background added to the effect of the image.

This second set of shots were of what I could only describe as an antique electrical breakout bay and the electrical switch boxes and fuse boxes. Although these did not really work well with colour, I found once I converted them to black and white the contrast in the wood and cables really came out and gave the pictures additional character.

And this brings me to the final shots which were my favourite of the day.

I loved these shots as it really showed a part of the island that has been left seemingly untouched for a long time. Although these images seemed slightly depressing I did love the character that these images seemed to have.

All in all I enjoyed discovering the benefits that can come with black and white photography and the fact that shadows and contrasts become so much more important than when using a colour image.

I do welcome any feedback and once again you can see the full black and white gallery for more of the photos where you can also leave comments on each of the photos if you desire. I will get the full image sets up at some point in the near future (including those in colour).