Shooting Abandoned buildings: BTS, Dimenticato in Italy project - Day 4

The final morning surprised me, to say the least as we were able to fit in four more locations within 3 hours! The hospital counted as two locations as there was an extensive beautiful church on the site surrounded by the many hospital's buildings. The photo above is a BTS shot of me capturing the hospital church in all its glory, the weather was great too, so the blue skies contrasted the light tones of the church building perfectly. All photos in this blog were taken on mine/ somebody else’s phone and are not from my camera.

Although these locations were quickly visited as we had to be at the airport by 1 pm for our flight, I made sure I enjoyed what was left of a fantastic trip and took everything in at these last few stunning places.

Teatro Rosa - 8:00am

We missed shooting this wonderful little theatre at the end of yesterdays shoot due to it being too late and dark, everyone was also exhausted as we had been awake since 6 am and shooting for over 12 hours. We were lucky enough to have time to visit this lovely pink/ red theatre in the morning of our final day before going to the airport. The theatre was only 20 minutes away from where we stayed the night before we so did a quick stop here early in the morning, we gave ourselves half an hour to quickly get the shots we wanted and then quickly left to make our way to the hospital which was a much larger location and required more time.

We got here at 8 am so there was not much natural light entering the building, it was very dark and we had to use torches to make our way around. The technique of a long exposure was used at this location to create successful images instead of using the highest ISO and getting an awful amount of noise in the shot and not a considerable amount of light. We used steady tripods to ensure our framing was right and that there would be no movement of the camera during the exposure time.

Ospedale - 9:00am

I loved exploring the hospital because of the scale, there were rooms upon rooms and so many corridors leading to even more rooms. We had a real challenge trying to find the morgue in the basement which was something we wanted to shoot, we spent over half an hour trying to find it but it became like a huge maze and we could not seem to track it until the very last minute.

The morgue was fascinating as it had the beds left inside and straps where bodies were be placed to rest within this room until ready to be taken for burial. The basement was very dark and disturbing, you could almost feel the dark heaviness around you, it was quite far underground and we had to walk through a tunnel to get to it which added to the creepy atmosphere of the location.

The strange thing is that the hospital had not already been demolished because the new live hospital grounds were directly behind this. Possibly in the future, they would eventually knock this down, which makes me feel lucky to of been there while it still stands.

Ospedale Golden Church

This stunning golden church was something we felt lucky to find, the size of it was insane and you could get upstairs and walk the whole perimeter of the building in the beautiful architectural archways looking down towards the pews and alter. We found our timing in this location to be just right as the sunlight was shining through the stain glass windows giving the inside of the building a golden glow which created great shadows and highlights within our shots.

Church Blu - 11:00am

This location was the last of the many churches we got to see on this trip. It was connected to what seemed to be a boarding school and was weirdly unsettling as there were children’s toys scattered around that were decapitated and torn apart.

The church building was formed in a hexagonal shape and we used the veranda at one of the many archways to take our wide angle shots. The inside of the church was very messy and not a lot was left behind regarding objects and furniture, it remained pretty empty with lots of broken pieces.

Something amusing was that I had to stand on three tiles of concrete in order to accurately see my camera on the tripod and what I was shooting, I was shooting from a high level in order to get the peak of the architectural shapes in my shot and as I am quite short I had to improvise to make sure I got the framing correct.

I was sad to be leaving Italy as this was the best photography trip I had experienced so far, I felt overwhelmed and fulfilled with the amount I was able to learn and experience on this trip and will be forever thankful to the guys I traveled with for allowing me to be part of their team. I will use the information and advice they taught me in the future and will always refer to this short trip as a huge learning curve in becoming a photographer and how working as a team is vital in collaboration/ group projects.

I surprised myself on this trip with the crazy early mornings and long days shooting and traveling but I would not have had it any other way and I enjoyed every single second. I found what got me through was the adrenaline and excitement I had every day from each location to the next as well as the curiosity of what the next location would be like, this helped keep my morale and energy levels high throughout the whole 4 days. It was amazing to see Italy in a completely different perspective to what I had seen before on a previous trip to Rome. I was able to see the opposite of tourist attractions and busy spaces and instead the real beauty within decaying Italian buildings that are disappearing over time which made me feel so lucky and privileged to be able to explore these places that many people would never discover.