The Long Silence: Part 2

  A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about exploring a local abandoned mental asylum and said I would follow up with more pictures.  Well, after hours of scanning, rescanning, stitching, rescanning, stitching, colour balancing, rescanning, stitching and re colour balancing (I hate Photoshop) I have finally managed to scan my prints and get the scans to look (almost) like the prints.  I really should learn not to print bigger than 8 x 10 because my scanner can’t fit the print in and my computer struggles to run photoshop (I really need to get round to wiping it and reinstalling everything).

  First things first though, a little bit of history (Wikipedia based of course).  Construction on the asylum began in 1869 as the three Lancashire asylums in Prestwich, Rainhill and Lancaster were deemed to be full.  It was designed by Henry Littler, Architect to the Lancashire Asylums Board.  It officially opened in April 1873 and had an initial capacity of 1000 inmates.  Within the grounds were a church, a chapel, a large recreation hall and a farm estate.  In 1878 a new annexe was started to the north of the hospital and this was completed in 1880.  This allowed a further 115 patients to be housed and a dedicated Post Office to be created onsite.  Shortly thereafter in 1884 a sanatorium was established in the hospital grounds to cater for patients with infectious diseases.

  In 1892 works began to provide electric lamps throughout the grounds and another new annexe was started, followed by another in 1912.  By 1915 the hospital housed 2820 inmates, more than double the original capacity.  The Whittingham Hospital Railway which was used to transport coal, goods and staff between the hospital and Grimsargh was closed in June 1957.

  When the First World War struck a new annexe was commissioned to cater for war casualties.  Patients who died were buried on a private cemetery within the hospital grounds.  When the war ceased the hospital returned to private use.

  In 1923 the decision was made to change the name ‘Whittingham Asylum’ to ‘Whittingham Mental Hospital’, presumably to make it sound a little less imposing.  When the Second World War struck the hospital was again used in treating victims of the war.  In 1948 the hospital was renamed to ‘Whittingham Hospital’ after it became a part of the newly formed National Health service.

  In the late 60’s meetings were held with senior staff to discuss complaints of cruelty, ill-treatment and fraud within the hospital.  Those who held the meetings were then threatened with actions for libel and slander.  Eventually the Hospital Management Committee intervened and began inquiries into the allegations of corruption and abuse.

  The hospital eventually closed in 1995 and the hospital still sits there, fenced off.  Plans have been in progress for a number of years to build new homes on the site, but as yet have not been finalised.

  That’s the history, now let’s take a look inside.  I have included the 2 pictures from my previous post just for the sake of completeness.  As previously stated I decided to use the lith process on these prints as the high contrast and graininess would really complement the textures within the decaying buildings.  I used Agfa Brovira paper as it retains highlight detail really well when lathing and you can get a wide variety of print tones depending on developer dilution and life.  I hope you enjoy:

The Long Silence

  The title of this post has a two-fold meaning.  Firstly, i haven't uploaded a post in absolutely ages,  and i'm sorry about that.  The past few months have been hectic and i just haven't been able to get into the darkroom to do any printing at all.  I was hoping to finish the series this post is dealing with off and upload all the images together, but as it looks like i won't be back in the darkroom for (what feels like) eternity i thought i had better upload the first part now.

  This post is about one of my favourite photographic subjects - abandoned places.  Regular readers will know that i love to get into abandoned buildings and take photos.  A few months ago i finally found my way into Whittingham Asylum, a large complex of buildings not far from where i live.  This place is without a doubt the biggest explore i have done and it was amazing.  I barely scratched the surface of what was available to see and i ran out of time before i had even covered a quarter of the complex.  I definitely need to go back.  And soon.

  For me, urban exploration photography is all about texture.  Peeling paint, rotting wood, crumbling walls etc all catch the available light and enhance the texture of photographs.  When inside i shot a roll of old Portra 160NC and a roll of Ilford FP4+.  When home I developed both rolls and decided to start printing the colour first as i hadn't done any RA4 in a long time.  It didn't go too well as i kept getting light leaks on my paper (it was a sunny day, there must be a hole in my shed letting light in that i need to plug).  I got one print that i liked as shown below:

  I decided to ditch colour for a while and concentrate on the black and white roll.  The problem was that what with the roofs missing from parts of the buildings, there are areas of extreme highlights on some of the walls.  Some of the shots i took are unusable because i just couldn't retain highlight detail.  I printed a few of the other frames but i just wasn't happy with what i got.

  I decided to try some shots in lith, but i didn't want the extreme contrast you get with some papers like Slavich Unibrom - that would have resulted in even more highlight loss.  I decided to use some Agfa Brovira (G3) i had recently come into as I knew it would give a nice even development but still retain that nice lith look.  Brovira has a "softer" lith effect than some other papers and highlight detail can be retained much easier.

  I mixed up some LD20 and made the first print, which took about 25 minutes to develop:

  After a good wash i toned in Selenium 1:5 for a few minutes which altered the highlight colour from a pale yellow to a slightly pinker hue which i preferred.  Normally i use a 1:9 ratio to avoid a pronounced colour change but still affect contrast, but used 1:5 as i wanted a colour change on this print.

  I then decided to print the chair photo mentioned earlier (i shot it on b&w as well as colour, just in case).  This took 45 minutes to develop, fortunately i had my stool and stereo with me (possibly the 2 most important items in any darkroom)!

  As before i toned in Selenium 1:5 but i cut toning short once the highlights were being reached (selenium toning starts in the shadows and moves up) to retain the yellow hue.  This image is naturally contrastier due to the light coming in through the windows and i think the cool greys of the shadows works well will the warm highlights.  The straight print of this is nowhere near as good as the lith version in my opinion.  Sometimes an image just needs lith.

  I have still got a few more frames to print which i will hopefully be able to do this weekend, failing that next week.  As soon as they're done ill get them uploaded and posted here.  In the meantime keep printing and ill see you again soon.