The Spaces that Time Forgot

Hello folks. I recently did a short tutorial for my camera club on the topic of Liminal Photography and it was new to most, although many of us, including me, had been doing it without knowing.

What Is It?

Liminal Photography is about making images that create unease, discomfort, fear, wonder, excitement and memory.

The subject matter is most commonly man made, but without the presence of humans and involves something that appears lost in time or space, or shows a transition between two areas that may also create a mental warp in space and time.

Examples

What Do You Need to Do It?

First off you need your own vision and your imagination and willingness to both really see and to be able to identify an emotional response to what you are seeing.

Most important is the willingness to get outside and explore. Urban exploration is a popular route, but so are night shots of things all closed up, abandoned shopping malls or strip malls, stairways, tunnels, graveyards (being respectful) and anywhere you could apply the adjective “eerie”

Where Do We See It

Liminal photography and liminal cinematography has been around for a long time, from some of the German and Russian filmmakers of the 1920s, to images from the Atomic age, to what is happening all around us as the world changes. What was once new and amazing is often today abandoned and derelict. I find empty playgrounds at night like this or subway tunnels in the wee hours, abandoned buildings, old silos still standing where the farm is long gone, and similar subject matter.

Wrapping Up

Liminal photography is more art than science. It does not necessitate any particular gear, although I often use a tripod to take the time to experiment with different compositions. Anyone, willing to go out, to see and to imagine can do it. The final images can be incredibly powerful and the more emotion an image generates the more powerful it is.

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