Join me for a cold and snowy morning walk around a power station in Munich, where I practice setting up in cold weather and experiment with filters and exposure times - the results are quite unusual!
I drove past this quite massive power station on Saturday and decided, rather spontaneously, to escape early morning on Sunday to go for a walk around it looking for some large format views. I won’t focus on the environmental views on this power station (as I understand it, it is a mix of coal and household waste), this power station has been in the Unterföhring part of northeast Munich since 1964.
I was less interested in the background and operations of this power plant and more in looking for some interesting black and white shots. I did some research online to look for a good place to start and ended up finding a good walkway along the side of the power plant.
All shots taken on my Linhof Master Technicak 4x5 camera on Fomapan 100 film.
Google Earth is super useful for planning out photography trips. After a first unsuccessful vantage point, I found the perfect walkway along the railway tracks with plenty of uninterrupted views of the power station.
My first stop did not have the best vantage point and I incorrectly assumed I could get access to the side on a walkway around it. But before I gave up I did a first test shot with the 270mm lens.
The day was cold, wet, and snowing so my results are quite unpredictable!
My cover shot for this blog post and perhaps my favourite shot of the day. I was very unsure about taking this shot as it was extremely foggy and wet. I didn’t even take a “setup shot” as I was cold and pretty miserable.
I love the final result though!
The composition turned out as expected, but the final exposure and image is really very different to how I had imagined! I think a combination of using a red filter instead of expected orange and snow falling on the filter as I was messing around with the setup led to a very curious outcome.
I also can’t discount poor film development skills, although I didn’t notice such drastic spots on the other negatives.
The image reminds me of Mary Poppins though!
A few shots of my setup.
This shot came out a lot darker than I expected, but I like the contrast.
Shot with my 90mm wide angle lens - I was trying to move my tripod and setup to not have the sun right in the lens.
I find the image too busy actually, although my initial idea was to have some contrast between the fence at the bottom and lighter towards the top of the image. I think the power lines of the train track distract and change the composition.
Whilst also distracting with the train track lines, I really like the different shades of grey in this shot. It is also a better exposed and sharper shot than some of the others.
I like all the different shapes in this shot.
Overall observations
I am really glad I didn’t turn around and go back home as I was driving to the power station. I nearly did twice as it was foggy and just miserable outside - perseverance pays off I guess. I really enjoyed looking for different and interesting angles of this subject. I am really surprised at some of the final results due what I think was a mix of environmental factors and very dark filters.
Not much more to say - it was an express trip and film development!
Thanks for stopping by,
Neil
