Location Scouting at the Abandoned Grey Hound Track… Again!
25/08/25
It had been quite a few months since Evelyn and I last made our way to Armidale’s abandoned greyhound track. I’d hoped the sun would be in a position to shine through the glass front, but I think I’ll have to wait until summer for that to come to fruition. That said, the lighting was definitely more interesting than it was on my last visit, which was during a thunderstorm. I decided to take the vintage Nikon Nikkor 35mm, it just seemed like the right choice for the job, especially after the shots I got exploring the abandoned homes earlier in the month. I was able to fully leverage its wild flares outside the bar and holding areas, and I really love the mood it creates in these images.
I didn’t expect the interior to change much since the last visit, but people had been coming in and leaving furniture behind, so it felt quite different this time. Why people are doing this is another question entirely, it’s a pretty high-effort location to dump your garbage, but it’s certainly got me curious about what future visits will bring. Again, I feel like I picked the perfect lens for the job, and I love the way these shots look in black and white. It all just kind of works… for me, anyway.
What I didn’t expect to get was a portfolio shot…
This was, after all, only meant to be a location-scouting shoot. But lo and behold, here we are. This isn’t the first time I’ve photographed this chair, it wasn’t even the first time I’d photographed it that day, but finding this tin of Hormel Luncheon Meat sitting on the ground, in the foreground no less, when it certainly wasn’t there on previous visits… it’s just such a strange and surreal sort of image. I could hear an argument for having the background in focus (something I couldn’t do in the moment thanks to shooting handheld in low light), and maybe that would have made for a stronger image, but then again, maybe it would have made it less focused, less immediate. I’m not entirely sure, and I can’t exactly go back and find out now, the moment has passed. That said, I love this image all the same, and it’s absolutely going in my portfolio for this year.
I’m really excited to see how this location looks in summer, when the sun sets around three o’clock from the direction of the glass-fronted bar. If we can’t capture something truly magical in those conditions, then maybe it’s time to move on (and stop breathing in air that really can’t be good for us). We live and we hope, but either way, when we find out what it’s like, you’ll be reading about it right here.
