Industrial

So I keep going out to these places because frankly Edmonton can be a very boring city, and visually speaking there is not that many great structures to photograph. I don't think that is very pessimistic - just realistic.

Most commercial/business or homes are constructed with style or cosmetics in mind, "does it look appealing?" or "it has to look nice!", of course this fits with your home or a business, it needs to be attractive. And I guess for me the appeal here is a contrast to that very notion, these structures are the opposite of that. They have no consideration for beauty or style, it's 100% function. Nothing more and nothing less. Inside that function are all sorts of things that I personally find interesting. There is a beauty (at least in my eyes) to these structures that others outside of this industry can never have.

How does it all work? What is it for exactly? Who knows these questions? They aren't philosophical - they are literal, I'm sure there are only a small handful of people around the globe that can tell me how this stuff works at these refineries or plants. I'd kind of like to know.

Early last year I was out there with a friend and we were taking video and photos of these areas, at around 2am someone had called the police on us. The police show up and offer us a few reasons why we shouldn't be here, the two main things they said were that the companies are nervous about eco-terrorism and trespassing. OK. Fine. But we weren't there for that, I told them that and they more or less told us that security around there can "tune" (beat up) people for being in that area and the police would not like to "come back and find someone in trouble or tuned up". Strange. Later that evening I parked my vehicle (off the road) so I could get out and walk to a nice vantage point to take a photo of some holding tanks in a refinery, a black SUV with tinted windows rolls up next to my vehicle while we are not in it, it sits there. Ten minutes pass and nothing happens. We finish our photos and videos and walk back, we get in - the black SUV pulls up a bit and the window opens slightly and a man asks "what are you doing" and we say "taking photos", the man pauses and asks "what for? the internet?" and I say "maybe, I have no agenda, I'm not political and this isn't about that", he pauses again and says "OK". They drive off.

So that's about it, the place is awesome for photography and you gotta just get out there and do it, the 2nd last time I was out there with a different friend we were approached by security in a different area and he was friendly about it all, a nice change if you ask me.

I'll be back soon, I have a bunch of ideas for new spots in that area.













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