My first Urbex adventure in an old famous Spanish club
This is a short recap of my first Urbex adventure. I always wanted to take pictures in old buildings and during my vacation we crossed several old houses. I told myself that I should visit one of those places. So one day I took my car and went to search for those houses. To my surprise i came across and old discotheque. This club used to be the famous Paladium in the late 60s and 70s, when i looked it up. More can be found here:
https://discotecas70-80barcelona-cat.blogspot.com/2017/01/paladium-discoteque-crtra-palamos.html
It was a hot place back then and a lot of famous people visited the place, like Birgit Bardot. That always gives an extra excitement. That was the place i visited and photographed. There was not much left but it was an exciting journey. I played with ISO, shutterspeed and HDR. I used my Olympus OM-D Mark iii camera. In such a dark place it is always important to look at your ISO and shutterspeed. There were also some places in which the contrast between dark and light was high and there i used the HDR/bracketing functionality of my camera. It shoots in 3 different stops and it combines those shots into 1 shot with good lightning.
Here are some of the results.
The next picture was shot with different exposures due to the light through the window and the darkness inside.
Scary
It is not always nice and that is what i discovered when entering another house. When I was shooting some photos a guy came down from the stairs. He was all talking Spanisch and I did not understand a bit of it. I only could translate the words cocaine, hashes and police. I friendly said goodbye and that i was only taking pictures, but it was clear that this was a house for drugs.
Empty houses are used by people that do not have a home, so be carefull when entering such a place ! It was a little scary but fortunately everything went fine.
Conclusion
It was a very good learning experience and it was a lot of fun. You really get to know your camera settings and play with them. Definitely worth a second time !
Advice
It was a hot place back then and a lot of famous people visited the place, like Birgit Bardot. That always gives an extra excitement. That was the place i visited and photographed. There was not much left but it was an exciting journey. I played with ISO, shutterspeed and HDR. I used my Olympus OM-D Mark iii camera. In such a dark place it is always important to look at your ISO and shutterspeed. There were also some places in which the contrast between dark and light was high and there i used the HDR/bracketing functionality of my camera. It shoots in 3 different stops and it combines those shots into 1 shot with good lightning.
Here are some of the results.
f/3.5 1/400sec ISO200 14mm
f/3.5 1/60sec ISO-200 14mm
The next picture was shot with different exposures due to the light through the window and the darkness inside.
f/3.5 1/10sec ISO-200 14mm 0.5stop
f/3.5 1/10sec ISO-200 14mm
Scary
It is not always nice and that is what i discovered when entering another house. When I was shooting some photos a guy came down from the stairs. He was all talking Spanisch and I did not understand a bit of it. I only could translate the words cocaine, hashes and police. I friendly said goodbye and that i was only taking pictures, but it was clear that this was a house for drugs.Empty houses are used by people that do not have a home, so be carefull when entering such a place ! It was a little scary but fortunately everything went fine.
f/4.8 1/640sec ISO-200 27mm
Conclusion
It was a very good learning experience and it was a lot of fun. You really get to know your camera settings and play with them. Definitely worth a second time !Advice
- Know the bracketing possibilities of your camera
- Take your tripod with you, because you may not be able to shoot out of your hands and need a longer shuttertime
- Prepare where you can find old buildings
- Have fun !