[Kombisaurus]

Until 2000, the Willow Court Precinct was part of what had become the Royal Derwent Hospital. Beginning in 1827 when invalid convicts lived in wooden huts, the site housed men, women, and children with physical and intellectual disabilities, and psychiatric disorders. ... This is today a place of disjuncture, and yet a remarkable site of continuity as well. No place else in Australia offers a similar history through architecture of changes to ideas about disability, and that in itself makes the Willow Court Precinct and the now privately owned later buildings of the Royal Derwent unique. But there are also multiple issues of meaning involving such factors as the history of botanical fashion; medical history as experimental science (the asylum was using electric shock treatment as early as 1851); the sociology of a 'caring' community and its re-imaginings of a different sort of future; the aesthetics of place; the stories told and untold which circulate around a place of fraught memory; the problems of how the site can be made to work for the community today and tomorrow. The sense of both so much to be done, and such a unique opportunity to do something special, makes visiting the site at the moment a simply astonishing experience.

http://colonial.arts.utas.edu.au/seminars_2002.html

This place was the stuff of many schoolboy stories when I was growing up in Hobart. Most of them no doubt completely baseless, and almost all of them very cruel, uncaring and very politically incorrect.
But despite hearing (and fearing) so much about the place as a child, I had never actually been there to see it until very recently. Of course it is closed now, and many of the surrounding newer buildings that were also part of the hospital have fallen into disrepair and been valdalised. Fortunately the original buildings seem to have been spared from vandalism. There also seemed to be a lot of activity in some of the surrounding buildings - it looks like they are in the process of being restored which is good news.
I took many photos, but these are just three of my favourites. I'd love to go back there again. As the quote above states, it has a very unique history and I think has been often misunderstood... I'd like to find out what the real Willow Court was like.


1. View of part of the original buildings at Willow Court.


2. A door leading into a kitchen in one of the older (but not the oldest) buildings. Note that even the internal walls like this one appear to be about 2 feet thick.


3. A bed remains in one of the newer buildings.

[matthew]

Photo #1 is just astonishing. It tells me so much about the place; the unused building is made ominous by the sense of foreboding in the sky. The way the grass is breaking through the brick, both in the foreground and the tufts turning the paved courtyard into scrubland, gives a sense of great age and 'delapitude', but also echoes both the organic irregularity and the leading lines of the sky. This organic disarray of the sky and ground contrasts nicely with, and enforces, the geometry of the building. (Isn't that a metaphor for what the building was for? Enforcing geometry on organic disarray?)

...the more I look at this, the more jealous I am that I didn't take it. But then, I wouldn't have seen it this way. (In my version, it wouldn't have that lone little tuft of grass that's cropped off by the bottom of the image.) I can safely say that you can print this one big and call it art.

[Petographer]

Excellent images Adrian. The first is my fav of the three. The clouds make it quite dramatic. Great shooting as always.

[Toad]

Excellent series. Really captures the essence of the place.

[shuttertalk]

It's amazing how you can really distill the essence of the place in 3 pictures... kudos to you Adrian. I like all the pics - they each appeal to me greatly and each has a different style.

Just a suggestion - do you think #2 could have been made a little darker and more ominous? I really love the sense of foreboding you get with that shot - perhaps some dodging around the corners like you usually do, and maybe enhancing the grain in the door and cracks on the wall. Just my 2c...

[byrt_001]

hi

great stuff..keep them comming

thanks for sharing

christian

[wulinka]

Great stuff, as always

Do you mind telling us a little bit about how #1 was made?
It looks like quite a wide angle, which is uncommon for you (?)....
and did you use a filter for the sky?

And, just out of interest, what is the black dot in the sky? d

Lovely pics, I can understand your urge to go back.


uli

[Kombisaurus]

thanks for the lovely comments ladies and gents

Matthew, what a lovely interpretation - I also wish I'd been thinking of that when I took the shot! I suspect you actually would have seen it this way if you were there, as you clearly see it this way now without the luxury of being able to wander around that I had.
With that particular shot though, it wasn't so much the "man-made order versus natural chaos" conflict that I was thinking of at the time, but more the "us versus them" attitudes that surrounds institutions such as this. The tuft of grass was deliberately included in the shot still, but for different reasons than you suggest. The regimented order of buildings are ready and waiting to receive and institutionalise anybody who might cross the line and walk up the path. While the viewer stands on this side of the line (indicated by the change in pavers and grass poking through) they are one of "us" and free to be individual and walk on by... but the viewer is also invited to step over the line, and once you start down the path you are one of "them", losing your freedom and individuality as you become institutionalised.
I realise it would be tough to try to convey that whole message in a single shot like this... but that's what was going through my mind at the time. I'm really happy to see the shot is thought-provoking though, and I get the impression that at least some of the feelings I wanted are coming through in it.

Toad and ST, I'm really glad that the series does actually work as a series. With this post I quite deliberately limited myself to try to tell the story with as few images as I could. (In fact, can I suggest a seperate forum section for "Photo Essays"?) I think with subjects such as this, the things that go unsaid can be just as important as what is said. With that in mind, I consider #2 my favourite shot of this little assignment.
Maybe the shot below of the gate has that dark and ominous look you were suggesting Jules?

Uli, the black dot in the sky in #1 is the rare Tasmanian flying dust bunny!
It was a speck of dust on/in the lens which affects my Sigma 10-20mm (and I think ultra-wide lenses in general) badly. Things weren't helped when I pumped some contrast into the sky, but forgot to clone the speck out.
Below is a newer version of the same shot. Apart from cloning out the dust I've corrected the perspective distortion in the buildings and generally fine-tuned it a bit more.
As for using a wide angle... well you're right that most of my recent stuff (especially sports and portraits) has been telephoto... but I think it was this that was uncommon - I feel like now I'm starting to get back to a more balanced use of focal lengths.
Having said that, all of the shots I've posted in this thread (including the new ones with this post) were taken at 10mm! (16mm equiv) I didn't intend this, and I certainly shot plenty of other focal lengths on the day... its just how things turn out.
Its fairly easy to take a 10mm shot and make it look ultra-wide (such as shot #1), but this kind of focal length is a great little secret weapon for adding space to "normal looking" shots in the right situations too.


4. New version of shot #1 with corrected perspective and general tidy-up.


5. Gate Leading to an Exercise Yard. Taken while standing in a secure airlock-style chamber with a large locked gate on either side that seperates the yard from the outside world.


6. When humans turn their back for just a moment, nature steps in to reclaim her lost territory.

[sg]

Kombi, those last two shots that you have just posted..................... just the eerie, silent feel to those shots just give me the shivers!

Outstanding again as always............

[Russt]

Maybe the shot below of the gate has that dark and ominous look you were suggesting Jules?

does it for me, its a place I wouldn't like to spend the night on my own :o :|

Kombi, shot #2 "the door" is there someone behind the broken glass??? I can see part of a face on our left. No one else has made mention of it.......am I the only one who can see it?? I am just not sure, I keep coming back to it!!

do you think #2 could have been made a little darker and more ominous?

Spooky now ST

Great series, thanks for the background story and your take on it. This really adds to the thread. I can see what you were trying to portray. Well done!

PS #5 the gate, the conversion's great suits the shot and the feel.

[Kombisaurus]

oooo.. now you're getting spooky Russ. There was definately nobody behind the broken glass! :o :o

There was a metal plate secured over the left half of the little window from the other side (not sure why, its not like anybody was about to crawl through it).

Maybe we have our very own shuttertalk ghost?!?

[sg]

Kombi, shot #2 "the door" is there someone behind the broken glass??? I can see part of a face on our left. No one else has made mention of it.......am I the only one who can see it?? I am just not sure, I keep coming back to it!!

Ummmmm............. looking back at that shot now i am finding that "face" very freaky!!!! Thanks a lot Russt :/

[matthew]

I'm rushing off to work, but just wanted to drop in a couple of quick thoughts... proper reading will have to wait another twelve hours.

(In fact, can I suggest a seperate forum section for "Photo Essays"?)

I wanted to make sure that didn't get overlooked. I'd enjoy a place to work on essays, as well.

....shot #1, I actually preferred it with the menacing lean to the building. It wasn't distracting, but added a certain alice-through-the-looking-glass feel to it.

Gotta take the dogs out...

[shuttertalk]

(In fact, can I suggest a seperate forum section for "Photo Essays"?)

Hold that thought (or bash me on the head to remind me later) - I was thinking of something similar... like "photo stories".. but I guess "photo essays" work too...

[wulinka]

the BW are fantastic, great range of tones.

To be honest, I liked the first version of #1 a bit better, looks quite sinister now. might be a screen issue....

uli

[Kombisaurus]

Interesting point Matt and Uli about #1.
I removed the perspective distortion because I thought it wasn't enough to look deliberate, yet was enough to be a bit noticable.
Comparing the two shots side by side I'd have to agree with you that it does change the mood of the shot quite a bit.. the original looks like its "coming to get you" while the second version looks like its merely "waiting to get you"

Thanks for your comments.