Submitter's name:	Wayne Harridge
Title:	The Real Thing
Gear used:	OM-2N + 24mm/f2.8 + Tripod
Aperture:	f8
Shutter speed:	Auto, around 10 sec.
Film used:	Kodak Elite 100
Technical information:	Auto exposure on tripod. Lighting supplied by my car headlights and some street lighting. Some minor cropping.
Subject information:	Adam's Take Away (AKA "The Grease Pit") is situated in the midst of a large industrial area in the SW suburbs of Melbourne. During the day it appears to be a thriving business with many cars and trucks parked on the dirt in front and customers inside. At night the building is completely boarded up and the surrounding area deserted. I chose the 24mm and the particular viewpoint with the deserted factory on the right of the frame to emphasise the feeling of loneliness, desolation and isolation. By the way, this general area was used for filming many of the location shots of the film "Mad Max".
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Comment left by: Morgan Sparks (msparks@together.net)

This image works really well; good composition and foreground, strong atmosphere. Great sense of 3-D with only a single light source. Very well done!

Comment left by: Wiliam Wagenaar (wiliam2@wish.net)

This really reminds me of the MAD MAX films. Desolated land where people used to come earlier.

Comment left by: Ian Nichols (i.a.nichols@bris.ac.uk)

It looks like it could use the elongated shadow of a figure just out-of-frame to the lower right, to add "sinister" to "desolate".

Comment left by: Bary Bean (bbbean@beancotton.com)

Nice mood shot. If I hadn't read the description I could have imagined a great story of how this area came to look this way.

Comment left by: Olaf Greve (olaf_greve@hotmail.com)

Indeed you conveyed the idea of desolation very well. The choice of the 24mm lens was a very good one for giving the proper "impact" to the picture.

Comment left by: John A. Lind (jlind@netusa1.net)

The real feeling of desolation and abandonment jumps out of this one. Your use of the headlights for the lighting helps, but it's the can in the foreground that tells the story. It's blatant evidence people were here at one time and now they're completely gone. I get the feeling gusts of wind will soon start swirling the dust. Thought about color correction for the color temperature of the headlights versus daylight film, but it wouldn't seem as natural or as powerful if you did that.

Comment left by: John Palmer (no e-mail specified)

Very atmospheric. I wouldn't want to hang around there too long at night!

Comment left by: siddiq (siddim01@student.ucr.edu)

anyone else immediately think "David Alan Harvey: Cuba"? One of the photos in the June 99 Geographic is much like this...novel idea of using headlamps as a light source.

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