Autumn Concrete
Keizermühlen is a zone of Vienna, where the brutal impact of the modern architecture reshapes the light and space on its own will. There are no skyscrapers here, but instead the sky cracks between the lifeless towers and trough your heart.
I’ve taken the camera to this journey for the first time, the main objective being Street and Architectural Photography. I wanted to find something interesting and this is what I’ve found:
“the trees that kill themselves”
Photo taken with the Fujifilm GF 45-100mm f/4.0 at ISO 400 and f/4.0, 45mm.
I’m sorry I took all the colors out, there were none actually, except the orange-red of the autumns leaves,
which in this context symbolizes the blood of the trees that kill themselves behind the concrete walls.
This is a prison for the trees (poor trees) and their main role is to give the tenants a false impression that they actually don’t live in hell.
A massive crowd of horrendous and oppressive blocks of concrete and glass that are welcoming you with their decorative presence of twisted, instrussive and cold sculptures of metal, emphasising their ravage effects on your soul and on your light.
IF the blatant impudence of their creators upon the future occupants - which derived from their past child abuse and their deranged post-creative pompous descriptions - is called art, I want to kill myself.
So instead killing myself, I took the camera and transformed this atrocious abomination of so-called “modern architecture” with no character, into a photographic imagery that can at least be perceived as art. I hope.
Ironically, you can tell a story about a place without a story.
One or two persons are rushing every half an hour somewhere like their boss would attempt to behead them soon. No other ppl are seen at the windows or anywhere, this zone is dead. I’m suspecting there might be even torture chambers in these blocks. These bosses are busy, I tell you.
A woman sells coffee to nobody. I think she missed the rush hour, which happens when the sinners are rejected from the gates of heaven.
“Coffee for Nobody”
I swear I don’t make this up. She literally sold zero coffees in the past 100 years.
“Newborn welcomed to the machine”
This photo could have many names: “Torture is your new life”, “Babies from hell”, “Premature crucification”, etc.
In terms of composition I wanted to achieve a certain descentred symmetry where the balance is achieved by shadows and light. Sometimes is not, like in the photo above. I don’t like it anyway, but I had to tell the story about the babies born in hell.
In the same time I wanted an edgy look that avoids out of context elements in the shots and create a very clean and clear feeling about the message I wanted to transmit.
Was I manipulating the truth, distorting the reality? I would say not. I emphasised and subtracted the elements that can describe my feel of the world to the viewer.
Now let’s change the subject for the who is interested in details about the photography. The flexibility of a zoom lens is quite handy sometimes, using a zoom is not my style, but I really wanted to take this lens in the city for the first time.
The Fujifilm GF 45-100mm serves well for events, parties where you don’t have time to adjust and you don’t want to miss the moments.