The “Forgotten Places” photographic project, which is still going today, was started between 2014 and 2015, with the aim of telling the story of, and transporting the observer into, places that have been forgotten, abandoned, left to rot and ruin and that are the symbol of a contemporary society that is no longer capable of creating a dialogue with places, but instead often scores deep wounds across the land. The desire of the project is to give a voice to these “presences”: buildings, places, environments, often found within abandoned and forgotten green areas.
For safety reasons and because of the special permission to visit involved, I am not able to mention the location of the places described; however, for the most part, they are found in Tuscany.
The project is still active and I intend to bring it to a close soon in order to create a themed photographic exhibition.
Equipment used
For this Urbex project, that I began about a year ago, I used a DSLR camera and mostly wideangle lenses. I chose a light tripod, the Manfrotto Compact, that enabled me to move around quickly and without too many hurdles, whilst still maintaining good image stability.
Description
“Lost World”
A disused boiler room. Three large boilers in the background are contrasted by the foreground filled with tubes and pipes, almost as if they were “organic” subjects now devoid of life.
“The Show is Over”
A little theatre that was found inside a healthcare facility. It was used to entertain the patients with small performances. Someone stacked away the benches in an orderly fashion; an order, however, which is in contrast with the neglectful state of the location.
“The Room of Switches and Buttons”
This is maybe the shot which provides the strongest testimony to the wasting of equipment, and, above all, money.
“The Temple”
There was a time when men built altars, temples, to worship the gods; they focused on order and creating harmonious architecture in communion with the land and its inhabitants. This photo bears witness to how far the “modern” man has moved away from all of that; his constructions rise up in green areas, violations of often protected land, his temples are buildings of iron and cement, often abandoned and left to ruin.
“Forgotten Prayers”
A little chapel built within a hospital building often home to the patients final prayers. Today left in total abandonment, home only to graffiti and vandalism.
“Radiation”
An x-ray machine. The photo was taken centre-on to highlight this element in close-up. On the floor of the adjacent rooms, hundreds of medical reports and records containing x-ray images.
“The Way Down”
An internal staircase in a former hospital. The photo was taken by suspending the tripod with the camera on autotimer, to try to capture the whole of the central stairwell, highlighting the emptiness and darkness at the very bottom.
Andrea Celli
I began taking my first photos with my father’s analog cameras: reflex, compact, often disposable cardboard ones, at a time when you still sent the films off to photo studios and picked them up a few days later. However, my relationship with photography really blossomed during my university studies, when I began to cultivate a real passion for it and started my first courses in technique and training, complementing them with further courses in graphics and representation techniques.
I have always valued the extraordinary possibilities of photography, not just as a purely descriptive means, but much more so as a creative tool. Guided by my passion for travelling, my interests focus mainly on photo features, street photography and landscape photography. My aim is always to tell a story.
Web: http://www.andreacelliphotography.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Andrea-Celli-392097014333450/