Wednesday is generally the most hated day of the week (other than Monday), as it often feels like a boring, nondescript day, where you’re kind of in a slump and not creative about anything. It’s very drab and no one likes it. Also, for those familiar with the Addams family, Wednesday is the name of one of their children, and she is known for having a deadpan expression and is associated with gothic undertones. This might be similar to what people think of when they think of 798, an abandoned factory – a sort of eyesore place that’s devoid of creativity and life. However, that’s the expectation that I want to subvert through my triptych. While 798 can be thought of as “Wednesday-like”, it can also be associated with a “wonderland”, where things are not as they seem. Pipes that used to transport steam are used as decoration and old factories that used to mass produce cheap goods now house expensive, one of a kind art pieces. Furthermore, the illusion that the 3 pictures form 1 building (elaborated on later) also plays into the “Wonderland” aspect, where rules of the physical dimension can be broken. Through my triptych and the naming of my triptych, I hope my viewers can consider the unique duality of 798.
The artists that have inspired my work most are Iwao Yamawaki and Aaron Siskind. Iwao Yamawaki influenced the way I approached my subject, the Bauhaus style buildings at 798. He managed to capture even drab, everyday buildings that weren’t meant to be subjects of art in poetic, intriguing manners. Although his pictures are abstract, they do not completely render its subject devoid of context and its original distinguishing features. Aaron Siskind inspired me to treat everything I approach, even the “little things” as subjects worthy of photographing. In order to develop my ideas for this project I experimented with different angles of framing buildings. In this particular triptych, the buildings are framed in more typical manners, but throughout the process I also tried taking pictures of buildings with different angles and perspectives. I also tried photographing specific elements of interest in different ways. For example, for the first picture, I also tried to take a picture of the pipes from an extreme low POV angle (which almost killed my back), or tried to capture a large amount of the building front-on.
After experimenting, I brought together these 3 pictures for my final triptych. Although this triptych did not cover some other photos that I really liked I think that each of the 3 photos in the triptych would be able to stand alone as a successful picture, so there’s no “weak link”. Furthermore, the purposeful combination of the three adds a layer of interest to the entire composition. The pictures on the left and right are taken from an angle, whereas the one in the middle is a front on view. To many viewers, this creates the illusion that the 3 pictures actually form 1 picture of a building (of course the perspective doesn’t add up in real life, but its visually intriguing). This compositional structure creates a sense of surprise within the audience, while also conveying the large scale and size of the buildings. The three pictures also convey varied textures and gradients through different brick elements and interplay of light. In particular, the first and third pictures contrast each other, with the one on the left being mostly light-colored, and the one on the left being cloaked in shadow/darker tones.
Overall, I think that this triptych managed to capture some of the distinctive elements of 798, such as the brick buildings and pipes. One thing that might not have been explicitly captured is links to rebirth. I tried to capture this in some other pictures, which fused mechanic and organic imagery together (such as pipes and plants), but I didn’t have enough photographs to form a compelling triptych.
I hope that the viewer is pleasantly surprised and enjoys my portrayal of the specific architecture in 798.
For future projects, I think I need to spend more time around each subject and take more pictures; when I was assembling my triptych, I felt like I had a couple of solid pictures, but I couldn’t find enough pictures with similar elements, tones, and structure to them to put them in a group. Also, I need to work on organizing my photographs in lightroom better.
