Battersea Power Station, London, 2024.
Battersea Power Station, London, 2024.
Battersea Power Station, London, 2024.
All the pixels, now on sale at 50% off, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/54079042655
#photography
11 comments
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Hey,that's the cover to a Pink Floyd album!
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@mattblaze@federate.social I still remember vividly when I visited London for the first time in, oh, 1984 or thereabouts. The bus turned a corner and I suddenly realised that the building on the Pink Floyd album cover actually existed. It was a very surreal experience.
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@mattblaze@federate.social
Shades of Pink Floyd! I'm sure you've seen the power plant in Chester, PA. I can't recall if it's visible from Amtrak or I-95, but it's a terrific ride down along the waterfront from PHL south – lotsa history from the Lazaretto in Essington (bought & sailed a boat from nearby — strange air currents from outbound flights — slow & heavy), to Piasecki Aircraft & down to Wilmington.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Waterside_Station_of_the_Philadelphia_Electric_Company- https://www.loc.gov/item/pa3680/
Part of it since repurposed — https://www.ecmag.com/magazine/articles/article-detail/miscellaneous-repurposing-power-house
- https://www.loc.gov/item/pa3680/
11 comments
Rodenstock 70mm/5.6 Digaron-W (@ f/8), Phase One IQ4-150 digital back (@ ISO 50), Cambo WRS 1200 camera (right shifted 20mm, vertically shifted 8mm).
This composition fully exploited the image circle and edge sharpness of the lens. We're to the right of the power station, but to preserve the geometry of the river side facade, the camera was pointed straight ahead, parallel with that side of the building. The camera back was then shifted 20mm to move the building back into the composition.
London's Battersea Power Station, built as two nearly-identical halves completed in 1935 and 1955, respectively, was originally a coal-fired electrical generating plant. It was decommissioned in 1983. After being idle for nearly 40 years, the plant has been re-developed as retail space and commercial offices, opened in 2022. Along with the Tate Modern, it gives London a second striking example of large-scale adaptive reuse of an obsolete, but still handsome, power station.
The power station has long been an iconic landmark on the south bank of the Thames, distinctive for its four prominent smokestacks (two for each of its two separate generating facilities) and industrial art deco architecture. Perhaps most famously, it featured in the cover art for Pink Floyd's 1977 “Animals” album, with one of London's (sadly now extinct) giant flying pigs captured hovering near the smokestacks.
@mattblaze@federate.social Our nearby power station - Moss Landing - has been torn down over the last few months leaving only the two prodigious smoke stacks. Those stacks can be seen from all around the Monterey Bay and from out at sea. The power station itself was mostly open to the outside, hence not particularly good for redevelopment except as one of the world's largest (if not the largest) grid battery systems (actually two systems.)
@mattblaze@federate.social
We werre just at Battersea last month.
"been re-developed as retail space and commercial offices" is an understatment... it's a very upscale upgrade of the place, a real surprise to my British wife who lived in London in late 1970s.
https://batterseapowerstation.co.uk/
We then took a boat ride down the Thames to the Canary Wharf complex. The building lighting on South side of river made it seem more like Hong Kong or Tokyo.
https://canarywharf.com/
@mattblaze@federate.social
A long time ago, I was driving over Chelsea Bridge when I noticed a large inflatable pig in the air. Had no idea what it was about until later.