'Derelict Thursday' - The Pink Phone Box

Thanks to everybody who has tried this new Blip challenge.

WEEK #1

Please tag entries 'derelict Thursday'.

So far, entries from Rainie
Miffy
nickmott
RtCph
Mario
mydartmoorwalks
Hanneke
tedwinspics
KF
Jerrywsl
Freyjad
jophreeves
StillRockin'
JennyD
Sueno
lynnfot
plumbum
Susanna
freespiral
himself
dennismccoy79
DesertCamel
Rural Dave
Aynil
Shuttersister
Timmynomates
jinglyjan
suinlondon
CleanSteve
sdg92
13south
Fluffikens
LAS
LizMBPics
MartynA
winchwench
earthdreamery
shotfromacanon
Kd
FourSeasoned
Mikeday
Beckett
ElectricFish
Ubique

All entries can be seen HERE

If it seems that I am stabbing in the dark a bit with this, then I am! But this is the first week and I'm sure it'll be easy!

I won't be judging my favourite until at least this time tomorrow, to allow for late comers and our friends across the Big Pond.

My own entry is a thought-provoking and sad one.

As soon as I saw this sad sight a few days ago, I knew that I wanted to make a series out of the theme ‘dereliction’.

About where I was standing to take this photo was the ward at the Psych hospital where I was an in-patient. That was over 17 years ago. The ward was a prefab that had to be demolished and removed as it was found to be totally substandard in its standard of accommodation but also because it had a lot of asbestos in its construction.

This phone box, once red – and paled in the sunshine over its neglected years, was where patients made their calls to the outside world. In a time, long before mobiles and even before pay-phones on the ward, there would be a queue, for the homesick and desperate, those ordering takeaways and taxis, would push an endless stream of 10p coins into its greedy slot.

Those removed wards were then rebuilt as bright new posh state of the art buildings. With separate rooms for each patient instead of the open wards of the old. A palace compared to the cattle shed that I had to endure for so long. The number of patients and beds were drastically reduced, all in the name of ‘progress’.

However, the whole site, like so many similar, have these few pockets of new facilities in amongst a huge sea of overgrown and derelict other buildings and grounds. The NHS cannot afford to dismantle and clear the old parts yet cannot sell the ground. Who would, after all, want to live in the immediate vicinity of a mental hospital, with real, live mental patients wandering about?

These derelict – and understandably dangerous areas are screened off by a heavy mesh fence. To get this shot, I placed my very fast 35mm f1.4 lens right up to the fence, shot wide open and focussed at infinity. The minimal depth of field has magically melted away the mesh. It’s a good technique that I highly recommend. Not only for your Derelict Thursday entries but for anything behind a fence, such as animals in a zoo.

Because it was a wide angle lens, the phone box does look rather small – and isolated. Rather than crop, I came to like its loneliness in its field of living grass. The other buildings you see were part of the old admin block of the hospital.

At some point, one day, this box will get removed. Some parts of the grounds that I remember have changed use or been demolished. Much is out of reach by both feet and lenses. These fences are people proof, as you would expect, considering who might wish to wander beyond them – and I don’t mean revisiting photographers such as myself....

The grounds are also in an area that I almost never would have reason to venture to – and so I wouldn’t notice changes unless I purposefully went back. Considering how much it has changed and how much it hasn’t, then I am pleased to document some of it, before it all goes. Many wouldn’t care, or want to know and I know that my reasons for doing so are healthy ones. In a word, I did not enjoy my revisit but knew immediately that there’ll be plenty of Blippable fodder for some weeks and months to come. So yes, I did have an ulterior motive when launching this Challenge, though I will Blip other places too, of course.

Lens is Nippon Kogaku (Nikon) 35mm f1.4