Project Statement

When I thought of the idea of photographing and evidencing Derelict and Abandoned buildings which have man made or natural damage I researched buildings and came across Abraham Ormerod Medical Centre I researched into the murder story behind the building of Harold Shipman and also I researched into photographers such as Christopher Payne, Anna Mika and Katherine Westerhout, all of whom photograph derelict and abandoned buildings. Firstly, Christopher Payne photographs the interior of derelict buildings evidencing the damage and the man made destruction. Whereas Katherine Westerhout focuses on the exterior as well as the interior of abandoned, derelict buildings. I wanted to adopt some of the techniques of each of the photographers I researched for example Katherine Westerhout's composition technique of a full frame building perspective. Whereas I wanted to incorporate and adopt the technique of Anna Mika’s photography of HDR style interior shots of abandoned buildings. Also looking into the composition of some of the photographs I wanted to achieve I looked into macro, close up, and still life photography. When photographing the exterior of Abraham Ormerod Medical Centre I wanted to experiment using the composition of close up photography to achieve a photograph that shown high texture and extreme detailing. Also when taking the objects from the Medical Centre such as the tin cans, and then photographing them using controlled lighting in the studio I wanted to adopt composition used in still life product photography. This featured the composition of straight on photography, using lighting shone straight onto the tin can to highlight aspects of the item that I wanted to highlight in the photograph.

Abraham Ormerod Medical Centre was once a medical centre which was open in 1974 when Harold Shipman took his position as general practitioner. “In 1975 he was caught forging prescriptions of pethidine, an opiate painkiller, for his own use and was fined £600, and ordered to attended a drug rehabilitation clinic” (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2603180/Yours-10-000-Examination-table-used-serial-killer-Harold-Shipman-began-killing-spree-1970s-goes-sale-eBay.html). Following on from this during his position as a General Practitioner at The Abraham Ormerod Medical Centre in Todmorden he began a killing spree of patients that visited this medical centre, in which most of the murders were committed during home visits usually using the lethal injection Diamorphine administered by Harold Shipman. According to the daily mail it is believed that he murdered up to 260 of his patients during a 27-year period stretching from 1971 to 1998.In 1998 Harold Shipman was investigated by police and given 15 life sentences for murder. Harold Shipman then committed suicide in 2004 by hanging himself at Wakefield high security jail and according to The Daily Mail “his death brought to an end one of the most dramatic chapters in British criminal history”.