Life’s an ocean with too much commotion

Everybody who loves taking pictures of abandoned places will have visited the http://www.abandoned-places.com/ site at least once.
One of these places described on that site is located in Aalst (Belgium), the abandoned factory of Bonneterie Bosteels – De Smeth.
This factory was very famous for its knitwear, better known as it’s product line ‘Du Parc’.

I’ve visited that location twice. The first time I took my flash with me, the second time I brought my tripod.
I’ve looked at the pictures on the abandoned-places site and compared them with my pictures. It seems that people stole and broke a lot of things, which makes this factory maybe not that exciting any more.
There was also a big fire in 2006, which burned down most of the offices on the first floor. Apart from that, taking pictures of objects and small corners turned out interesting.

You can enter the factory by crossing the gate, right of the main original entrance. If you want to access Du Parc from the city park, you can enter some small doors of the factory as well.
It’s best to stay out of the surrounding (abandoned) houses near the factory, as there are still people illegally occupying them.
The factory is really huge, it took us two times more than three hours to walk through it (of course including the necessary stops to take pictures).

In the center of the factory, there is a little garden with lots of bushes and trees. Through some of the windows, nature was already giving its best in infiltrating in the factory.
Most of the objects on the ground floor are stolen or gone, except for hundreds of cotton spindles, which are placed around the factory in a very weird way (you’ll notice it immediately when you’re there).
On the first floor, you can still see some knitwear, clothes, and the machines used for assembling and creating them. The first floor is much more interesting than the ground floor.

I’ve made a very small selection of the pictures taken in the factory, I hope you like them. If you have visited Du parc to take some pictures as well, I’m very interesting in seeing them, especially pictures taken before the fire in 2006.

I just had some time to upgrade my WordPress to the latest version. Next to the upgrade, I also applied a new (nice?) theme to my website.
It’s more dark and obscure than the first theme, but in my opinion it makes the pictures look prettier.

Do you hate it or love it? You can always leave feedback

See you!

Now that I have a new laptop, it enables me to run Adobe Lightroom again. This means, new pictures!!

About a month ago, I was shooting pictures of the Vibe Productions studio. The aim was to have some pictures in an industrial and dirthy atmosphere. I’ve made some close up pictures of the material in that studio, and applied some heavy Lightroom effects on that. Some of the results are listed here, other ones are viewable on my Flickr account.

It was actually the first time I did a project with an actual goal. Most of the time I just walked around and shoot pictures of things crossing my way. I find it exciting but nevertheless stressful to shoot pictures with a goal. I realize one needs actual training for doing things like that (light usage, composition, …). Maybe I should consider taking lessons, but they all start from zero and I’m afraid it’ll be too boring in the beginning. Anyone with tips?

What can you expect from me in the near future.. I’m currently processing my pictures from the ‘Du Parc’ textile factory in Aalst. I’ve visited that factory twice, the second time I’ve spend more attention to the places I loved the first time. Next week I’m visiting Paris, so you can expect some cliché Eiffel Tower and Moulin Rouge pictures

I’m also planning a huge (one month) trip to the US & Canada, which takes a big gap of my spare time. Isn’t that the perfect excuse for not posting regularly on my blog?

See you!

Oh yeah, before I forget.. the pictures