Infra red after the rain.

[belgiumreporter]

After the heavy downpours and floodings of the last weeks there's finally a few days of dry weather. Time to take the IR converted D70 for a walk.

The bright sun, blue skies and some fluffy clouds are ideal for infra red photography. The D70 is fitted with a 720Nm cut off filter so a little visible light still reaches the sensor. The files then can be prosessed as "false colour" IR.

Here's a few wich i processed with different settings in PS. (CCR "who'll stop the rain" playing in the background)

[belgiumreporter]

First developing the RAW file in NX studio and setting a grey point, then some colour swapping in photo shop to do the fine tuning. This way i've got a more "colourfull" image as normal devlopement in photo shop doesn't allways get the most out of the RAW. Still i'm no PS wizzard and maybe people with more skills will get it better just using PS.

 c.

These shots were made on the grounds of the former "petrol south" The Antwerp petroleum plant south of the city wich reached on the right bank of the river the Schelde upstrean until the town of Hoboken.

It's history goes back to 1859 when Edwin L. Drake drilled the first oil well in Pennsylvania. Two years later the port of Antwerp wich in that time was located near the city center functionned as the European distribution hub for petroleum.

In those days oil was deliverd in wooden barrels, by 1900 a warf was build to allow for bulk ships to moore. At the end of the 40'ties a new dock was build north of the city, by the time of the mid fifties a yearly 4.3 million tons of oil were processed in Antwerp with only a fraction of that at petrolium south.

By 2016 the site was completely abandonned and demolished, leaving a large waste land waiting for new developement. However the heavy contaminated soil doesn't help speeding up the development process.

[julio1fer]

Interesting images, and thanks for the economics history. I believe that Antwerp is still a reference point for oil products spot prices.

[belgiumreporter]

I went back to the petroleum south site, this time a bit further up stream towards Hoboken.

The weather was no good, it kept on raining, so the infra red files didn't contain much colour and i developed them black&white.

This part of the site is now classified as industrial heritage, but there are modern installations as well wich process petroleum. There's a strong smell of sulfur and crude oil so even with your eyes closed you know your in the right place.

A few interesting facts are the American Petroleum Company was amongst the first to in 1902 get a concession for building their plant there. Secondly by the building of the docking pier for the first time concrete was used, not the type of concrete we see today but a "first time" version wich makes it interesting for researchers to find out what mix exactly was used and how it held up for over 100 years.

I will need to go back there as it has come to my attention the original buildings of the American Petroleum Company are still there (just need to localise them).Still the last data i've found on the petroleum south site are from 2012, don't know what happened untill now as there's a lot of confusion about the protected heritage title. Some things may have disappeared.












I noticed the Sigma 10-20mm produces a hot spot in IR so i won't be using it anymore for my IR shots untill i find out more.