This morning on the spur of the moment instead of being domestic and doing housework, I noticed an event online which I simply could not afford to miss! Local to me is a place called Mannakin Hall, a deliberately mispelt location full of mannequins of all shapes, colours and sizes.
Mannakin is basically a 1 acre yard with farm buildings and stores littered with around 25,000 mannequins. Part of the site is arranged with a 30 feet high pile with thousands of body parts which would normally have been sent to land fill and destroyed. It's quite macabre to see that many parts all piled up.
Other parts of the site have neater rows of mannequins and posed or dressed in a kind of ironic way.
This is a selection shot today and I still have a few hundred images to go through!
Scarily Realistic
I visited here with only one lens, a Sony 20mm f1.8. I shot mostly wide open for the shallow depth of field and I'm still obsessed with this lens!
Shabby Chic
The level of detail the creator of this mannequin went to is impressive. The fact that the head is decaying only adds to the shabby chic factor!
BIOHAZARD
Located inside an abandoned steel cabinet was this smiley baby mannequin. The smile or smirk on the face looks creepy as hell especially with the biohazard tape across the frame!
I, Robot
The mannequins here were arranged in neat rows and they reminded me of the film, I, Robot.
Hands, and more hands
Unfortunately, I'm reminded of harrowing Holocaust scenes from WW2 where bodies are piled in railway carriages. It's almost like a kind of memorial this image.
Shed
I spotted this composition among the thousands of mannequins. In fact it's hard not to spot a composition whichever way you look!
Victim
I posted this image to my FB page earlier and one or two people find this quite disturbing. Mission accomplished!
Le Grand Mix
Amongst the piles of "bodies" were these adorned with newspaper print. I used a Sony 20mm wide open for the shallow depth of field and this is probably my favourite of this shoot.
Brunette
Looking like she's been caught in the rain, this one with dark makeup and wet hair looked scarily realistic!
Radioactive Infant
There were mannequins of all shapes and sizes including baby mannequins. I found this to be quite disturbing so I increased that disturbence by adding a cool blue tone to the image.
And baby has friends....
Ladies with Pendulous Breasts peeking in through the window
Stood inside a shed on site and these ladies were curious to see what I was up to.
She's not real
Wandering around the site today, I half expected one of the mannequins to suddenly move and scare the bejesus out of me! She's not real.....honest!
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to create art.
Social Media
https://www.facebook.com/fastchrisuk
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fastchris/
