Maginot Line Gros ouvrage Mont des Welches - ***IMAGE INTENSIVE***

[sparky.]

Fantastic report and pictures as always mate

 

[WinchItIn]

Top quality report and stunning set of pic's, Well done to you both.

 

[shatners]

Absolute top class... thanks so much for sharing, always get excited when I see one of your French reports pop up in the new threads

Is it so intact because of the remote location? Looks to be next to no graffiti etc.....

 

[sonyes]

Fantastic report and pics as always guys. Thanks for sharing.

 

[TeeJF]

Thank you one and all for your kind comments. No more French forts for a 'oui' while I'm afraid but I hope to stick a little urbex-Sicilia report up within the next few days.

Thanks again.

 

[Infraredd]

Hi
Utterly amazed at this. For 2 people to go down an abandoned hole in France where there is no light and miles of potentially dangerous tunnel work is dedication personified. The pictures are great, multiple flash usage in pitch black isn't easy and you got out alive. What do you do in the real world teach archeology?

 

[krela]

No one uses flash in pitch black, not if they want good photos.

 

[TeeJF]

Hi
Utterly amazed at this. For 2 people to go down an abandoned hole in France where there is no light and miles of potentially dangerous tunnel work is dedication personified. The pictures are great, multiple flash usage in pitch black isn't easy and you got out alive. What do you do in the real world teach archeology?

Hee hee, no, although both TJ and I studied Egyptology for a while plus we were both in the TA so we have a tiny bit of weapons knowledge. But I suspect the main knowledge of the Line and places like Verdun that we have acquired is simply from studying stuff before and after explorations.

As to how we light the shots, they are a mix of flash and light painting. As Krela says, flash doesn't tend to give particularly terrific results although I would say he definitely hasn't realised just how much flash we actually do use! All the shots in the kitchen area for example were flash only however I think you can tell that is the case because the foreground is well lit whilst the middle ground is rather dark, and the distant ground is very dark.

One trick I play is to use the camera on a forced long exposure but fire the flash to light the foreground whilst the distance is lit with a powerful torch we have which has a zoom facility. I zoom it slowly out, pause on out, then zoom in again, several times.

Another trick is to use long exposures with light painting but then if needs be I also force the exposure in Adobe Lite Room. Carefully playing with the exposure, fill and recovery settings can sometimes make a decent pic from something you don't think ever will - for example:

this shot was a flash shot and then I brought up the back of the room with processing in Lite Room.

Thanks for your kind comments.

 

[fleydog]

A Stunning set! Thank you.

 

[Infraredd]

Hee hee, no, although both TJ and I studied Egyptology for a while plus we were both in the TA so we have a tiny bit of weapons knowledge. But I suspect the main knowledge of the Line and places like Verdun that we have acquired is simply from studying stuff before and after explorations.

As to how we light the shots, they are a mix of flash and light painting. As Krela says, flash doesn't tend to give particularly terrific results although I would say he definitely hasn't realised just how much flash we actually do use! All the shots in the kitchen area for example were flash only however I think you can tell that is the case because the foreground is well lit whilst the middle ground is rather dark, and the distant ground is very dark.


Hi
Have you never tried slave flashes or magic eyes on an old non dedicated flash gun? I was trawling through e-bay and found an old cobra flash gun with 2 fag packet size slave flashes - they free stand & can add extra light from other angles. also if you use long exposures - a telephoto flash (not attached to the camera) can be manually fired several times from several angles before you activate the cable release or i/r remote. I tried light painting in the cave below a Welsh castle once & the rechargable battery kept going flat + it's a real art to get it subtle and not look like neon afterburn.
The archeology ref was to raiders of the lost ark & your Indiana Jones style Urbex
again .............respect.

 

[skankypants]

Top stuff!great pics considering the lack of light...realy like the stair shot...top work..

 

[TeeJF]

Hi
Have you never tried slave flashes or magic eyes on an old non dedicated flash gun?
The archeology ref was to raiders of the lost ark & your Indiana Jones style Urbex
again .............respect.

Hiya... yes I have tried slave flashes et all including tea lights too! The trouble is the Maginot Line and similar types of exploration which we do don't merit humping a great load of kit into them, especially given that on some of the Verdun fort explorations we carry ropes and climbing gear too. For example, to access one particular ouvrage we did last year we had to squirm down a narrow 'tube' of mud and then twist to the vertical, descend a section of gate that had been deployed as a ladder, twist back to the horizontal and squeeze through a hole burnt in a steel door and then climb another section of steelwork, all just to get in! On that occasion I didn't even bother with my main camera bag and just used a respirator case to carry flash, torches and camera. This particular ouvrage on this report was actually one of the easier ones so I carried the full bag this time. Also there is a serious amount of ground to cover in most of these ouvrages - GO Latiremont's gare is almost a mile long - and setting up a shot with umpteen slave flashes takes way too long. As it is we have never finished a complete ouvrage because humping up the 30 metres or so of stairs to each of the fighting blocks about finished us off after just two! That's why I use flash so much, convenience, efficiency and speed. Tripod shots with light painting do get an outing but again they are very time consuming, taking upwards of five minutes to get a shot one is happy with, especially if there is anything remotely foreground that is reflective. One thing I have been trying lately is longish exposures on the tripod and hand-blitting flash around as fill but it's not producing much useable stuff yet whilst I'm still learning.

Thanks again for your kind comments.

 

[chris]

Another trick is to use long exposures with light painting but then if needs be I also force the exposure in Adobe Lite Room. Carefully playing with the exposure, fill and recovery settings can sometimes make a decent pic from something you don't think ever will - for example:

this shot was a flash shot and then I brought up the back of the room with processing in Lite Room.

That works really well - I'm going to have to do some experimenting along those lines. Very useful for quick trips

 

[karltrowitz]

Excellent report. Thanks

 

[shane.c]

Good pics and info thanks for posting,