So my dream places to explore (and indeed the sorts of places I find myself exploring in my dreams) tend to be modernist buildings … concrete and interesting angles and all.
Here’s one such building that I’d like to see preserved rather than demolished!
The Mount Hospital in Bishopstoke closed a few years back in a clamour of local annoyance following years of campaigning to keep it open. It was a popular smaller hospital which mostly focused on rehabilitation for elderly patients but had various other outpatients’ departments.
The history of the site is interesting too. It started as smallish private estate with the first house built by a wealthy farmer in 1844. It was later bought by a Captain Hargreaves in the 1870s. When he died it was bought by a Mr Cotton who rebuilt it in 1893. His imposing Victorian mansion replete with impressive tower forms the heart of the site. It originally had impressive gardens too suitable for a house of its standing with an arboretum, formal gardens and a Victorian water garden. In 1927 it was sold to Hampshire County Council who converted it into a hospital reusing the original Victorian house, as well as building a range of other buildings including another impressive art deco-ish ward building. It was only when I saw the front of that other ward building that its purpose screamed out at me … massive opening windows are immediate tell tales of a TB sanatorium and I’ve since confirmed that this was the original purpose.
Overall I’m absolutely shocked by the state the site and mansion which is locally listed (but sadly does not have a statutory listing) has been allowed to fall into and so I’m currently in communication with appropriate parties to try and ensure that necessary attention is paid.
Being as I am a child of the early 70s, I spent the 70s and 80s mildly spooked by the concern that it was all going to end in the bright flash of a nuclear war. A strong influence was nuclear apocalyptic docudramas and the like, most notable Threads.
However, historically more interesting is The War Game which was made by the BBC in 1965. It was never broadcast because of the fear that it’d induce panic. Watching it now you can see why, since I seriously don’t think what was still a pretty formal and up tight UK could have dealt with the horrifying reality of what it really meant to go to war in the nuclear age. It was finally shown in 1985!
“Within the next 15 years possibly another 12 countries will have acquired thermo-nuclear weapons. For this reason, if not through accident or the impulses of man himself, it is now more than possible that what you have seen happen in this film will have taken place before the year 1980!”. Thank fuck they were wrong!
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5
Stunning and very bold film making from the BBC, even if it was then sat on for 20 years by the government and Beeb!
So I’ve had a long running struggle regarding my next camera, beyond my current battle scarred Sony DSC-H1 “bridge camera”. I’ve always hankoured after the step change in fundamental image quality brought by a DSLR with its better glass and larger sensor, but have refused to budge on my requirement for a single flexible device capable of both photos and video. Then a few weeks back the Nikon D90 was finally formally announced and the world got its first DSLR with HD video support … and it was time for me to start saving my pennies.
However, Panasonic have just announced their new DMC-G1 and suddenly we’ve got a curve ball. Well actually it’s not that much of a curve ball because it appears to not shoot video (which is especially annoying since it’s ideally suited for pulling the quality video trick), but interestingly it’s a fundamental departure from the traditional DSLR / point-and-shoot divide. A camera with replaceable lenses (admittedly with a new mount format) and large sensor, the DMC-G1 does away with the traditional mechanical mirror/prism arrangement of a DSLR. Hence it has no optical viewfinder and relies instead on a high quality electronic video finder like your typical (video shooting) bridge camera. This is very interesting to me, because I love EVFs! The quality of the one on my Sony is top notch, and one of the other things that’s been putting me off the DSLR route is that fact that unless you get to very expensive bodies, the optical viewfinder coverage isn’t 100% of the scene! You can’t actually see the edges of what you’re shooting … what’s that all about! On my Sony I can see exactly what the sensor is seeing, and once I take the shot I can see exactly what it took, all in glorious strong technicolour and without removing my eye from the view finder. It’s an ideal solution for making sure that you actually frame exactly what you want at the time which is why I take pride in the fact that (unlike many DSLR carrying buddies) I don’t end up cropping my shots to get the framing right … I get it right at the time at the instant I squeeze that shutter button!
Anyhow … I’ll be watching the development path that Panasonic are on with interest, and for now here’s a good pre-production review from dpreview of the DMC-G1.
When I explore I taken stack loads of pictures, but also like to take video. The video is taken on my digital camera and so is frankly rather shaky and also relatively low resolution at 640×480. Here’s a remarkable bit of research that looks to combine both to improve the resulting video with remarkable results! It’s all rather geeky but watch the video to be amazed, and also to grin at the repeated reference to the “spacetime fusion algorithm”. Doc Brown eat your heart out :-).
One of the big reasons I’ve never moved away from using a bridge camera and gone the DSLR path is because I like having a single device I can shoot pictures and video footage on when I’m exploring. DLSRs have historically be far to snooty to do video … until now! I’ve always preferred the colour balance on Nikon’s too since it matches the vivid style that my eyes (and my current Sony) see things in too.
The press like writing about Urban Explorers because we’re a cheap target. Often a local rag will use loaded inflammatory phrases like “breaking in” and “thrill seeker” to write about a site in their readerships’ locale and then ask the site owner to comment. Frequently they’ll steal pictures off our websites and use them in the article, even though the copyright theft they practice is a criminal offence, vs. the purely civil act of trespass I undertake when exploring a site.
Anyhow, the local paper in Croydon likes writing about their own local mecca of exploration … Cane Hill Hospital. This time the article was about videos of it being explored on YouTube, and of course I like making videos and putting them on YouTube. Indeed my directorial genius and clever soundtrack choice means I’m now famous ;-).
Here’s the article on the Croydon Advertiser’s site and here’s a direct link to the video in question.
… I’m going medium format baby for my next trusty exploring camera!
So this blog has been embarrassingly quiet of late. No particular reason beyond being busy with other stuff.
However, to wake things up I present to you a bit of absolutely quality celebrity location exploring!
So first I saw this I thought … “haha, that so must be a prank”. Then I starting worrying that it might actually be true! So for those mad explorers who go only equipped with their crappy camera ‘phones … you can now starting bring some quality to your blurry shots ;-).