Sloss Furnace Shoot

Originally uploaded by ruffyen.

So pretty much ever since I bought my camera I have wanted to go out to Sloss Furnace and take some photos of the place. First off the place has TONS of historic value for the city of Birmingham, secondly the old rusty fixtures there just seemed like something that was begging me to shoot. And I was pretty spot on. There were some really fantastic shots that I got out of this outting. The one here was in my opinion the best of the shots that I took. Very little editing was required of the image and ultimately I thought I really looked good. The rest of the set can be seen here
One thing that I was not aware of was all the red tape that you have to go through to take pictures at Sloss, even for "educational" purposes, or if you just think the place is cool and want to shoot photos. Basically they own all the pictures no matter what you do, and if you ever plan to sell them in a gallery or anything they get one complimentary piece of thier choice. It's pretty crazy if you read the entire document which turns out to be like 5 or 6 pages. None the less, none of it really mattered to me so not a big deal in the end.
Additionally my wife and I decided to make a day trip out of it and go explore downtown Birmingham camera in hand and see what else we could find. My second two favorite pics of the day came from the peanut gallery. The first image is of what I think is an antique roaster, and the second image is of one they actually use at the factory.
Overall I learned a few choice pieces of knowledge. If you are going to shoot somewhere that is protected by the Parks and Rec department, make sure you know what you are getting into. Secondly, when someone says they ask for donations, what they really mean is, " there is a fee to shoot here, but we wont tell you how much that fee is you just have to decide what it means to you.." to me it was $5 bucks :).