DECEMBER 2023 · PATINA
Helios 44-2 vintage dereliction
West Sussex, England
The Helios 44-2 is a Soviet 58mm lens from the 1970s. It renders out-of-focus areas in a distinctive circular swirl. I brought it specifically because I wanted to see what it made of industrial decay — whether its particular imperfections would say something about the subject's particular imperfections.
The answer was yes. The swirly bokeh turns bare winter branches around corrugated metal and exposed steel frameworks into something that looks intentional, like the rot has been arranged. Decay photographed with a lens that has its own kind of deterioration.
Decay photographed with a lens that has its own kind of deterioration.
West Sussex — December 2023
The site is a derelict industrial complex on a hillside in West Sussex, visible from the approach road as a collection of forms that no longer function as forms: rooflines without buildings beneath them, frameworks without their cladding, corrugated metal weathered from its original colour through rust to something closer to soil. A trespasser warning sign on a rusted structure — hand-painted, or close to it, the text faded. No fence in the immediate vicinity of the sign.
A rusted metal structure sits alongside a monumental concrete structure. The concrete is genuinely large — the kind of industrial scale that makes you reconsider what the facility was originally doing. Stacked wooden pallets rot in a courtyard. A building retains two storeys of wall with faded graffiti and broken windows, the stucco coming off in sheets.
The lens made the most of the hillside behind the complex — the bare trees surrounding the site bloomed into swirling rings at the edges of the frame. December grey light. No sun. The corrugated metal walls held all their surface complexity in flat, even illumination.
I walked the whole site in an afternoon. The railway carriage appears in three different frames without being the subject of any of them — always in the corner, always present.
Decaying industrial courtyard with stacked wooden pallets and crumbling weathered buildings under overcast skies
Trespasser warning sign on rusted industrial structure, overgrown with sparse vegetation and bare hillside beyond
Abandoned two-storey building wall with faded graffiti, broken windows and weathered stucco in industrial ruins
Monumental concrete industrial structure with metal frameworks and abandoned railway carriage in derelict site
Sprawling industrial complex nestled in steep hillside with rusted vehicles scattered in foreground courtyard
Elongated view of dilapidated industrial facility with deteriorating buildings flanking overgrown pathway and hillside backdrop
Vast derelict industrial campus viewed along weathered pathway with mountains rising dramatically in background
Striking steel framework and crumbling brick building silhouetted against grey sky on abandoned industrial grounds
Skeletal metal support structure rising from overgrown wasteland among bare winter branches and crumbling masonry
Two-storey abandoned industrial building with weathered corrugated metal cladding, wooden pallets and urban decay
Towering derelict factory structure with metal framework exposed, weathered surfaces and modern elements amid ruins
Industrial complex framed by concrete pillars and metal frameworks with abandoned railway carriage and hillside setting
Dramatic roofline of monumental industrial structure with corrugated metal walls against moody overcast landscape