Photographing an abandoned hut like this one is one of my favourite ways to spend an afternoon, mostly because it’s so easy to get to, and partly because I suspect its days are numbered. At some point the council will have to take it down. Until then, I’ll keep coming back.
Follow the wire fence that borders the Dandenong Ranges Botanical Gardens, and the walk down the hill will lead you almost directly to it: a small, decaying timber hut on the old Olinda golf course, half swallowed by ivy, sitting exactly where it’s probably always sat.
There’s another shelter not far from here, one that’s metal and fully maintained, all straight lines and good intentions. It does its job. But it doesn’t hold a fraction of the character this old shack does. This place has fallen apart in exactly the right ways. It looks like it’s failing, but really it’s just holding onto a lot of stories, one in every crack and gap.
Reading the Light First
The first thing I noticed was how deep in shadow the hut sat. That was the whole point, really, so I wanted the photograph to say so. If you think in terms of the zone system, this was sitting around zone four, maybe three and a half. Dark, but not lost.
The instinct, and the camera’s instinct too, is to brighten a scene like that. Lift it up, make it “correctly” exposed, tidy it into something the meter would approve of. But part of the job here isn’t to brighten it the way the camera wants. It’s to protect the story the way you actually saw it.
I started at ISO 100, f/4, and 1/125th of a second. Then, right before I made the photograph, I second-guessed myself and opened up a stop, from f/4 to f/2.8, to bring in a touch more light. Honestly, looking back, I probably should have trusted the first instinct and stayed at f/4. It’s a small thing. But small things are usually the whole point in a photograph like this.
Getting Closer to the Abandoned Hut
From there I moved in, looking for the details that would carry the story once the wide shot had set the scene.
The ivy was the obvious one, curling up and across the timber, doing more to hold the structure together at this point than the timber itself. It’s the kind of detail that creates intrigue almost by accident, so I made sure to give it the attention it deserved.
What really caught me, though, was the damage. The roof was still holding, more or less, but the walls were coming apart piece by piece. In one spot, half a timber panel had already fallen away and the other half was hanging on by a thread, just enough left to see clean through the wall to the other side. That’s the kind of detail that stops you. It practically asks to be documented.
So I kept working the details: the missing corner panel, the old bench seat still sitting inside like it’s waiting for someone, the vines pushing up through the gutters, the general, unhurried overgrowth of the whole scene.
A Different Point of View
Then I did the thing I’ve been told, more than once, is the wrong way to shoot. I got down low behind a fallen tree and let it block half the frame.
I like doing this because it adds depth without getting in the way of the subject. It gives you a different way in, a view you wouldn’t have found just standing there looking at the hut straight on. That’s the whole point of photography, I think. Not just capturing what’s in front of you, but finding a different vantage point that tells a bit more of the story, that shows a bit more of the place.
The final frame has the fallen tree in the foreground and a sweeping arm of blackberry cutting across the front of the shack. On paper, that might read as clutter, as something in the way. To me, it’s exactly what makes the photograph work.
In the interest of full honesty, I missed focus on that one, and the composition was slightly off too, mostly because I was more focused on the video I was filming at the same time than the photograph itself. It happens.
But that’s the scene, the details, and the different point of view that, together, tell the story of photographing an abandoned hut old Olinda golf course. It’s a reminder of why I love photographing an abandoned hut over a pristine one every time, and exactly why I keep going back.