Abandoned AEG control room of a power station by Karl Smits

About "Abandoned AEG control room of a power station"

by Karl Smits

About the artwork

k always love visiting places that exude past glory. Having worked in the industry yourself, you immediately get a bit of a feeling of coming home.

This industrial control room with Art Deco accents houses a gigantic AEG brand control panel. Operated by usually 1 or more operators, the control room ensures that all the power plant's installations can maintain their operation in a controlled manner.

For editing these kinds of photos, I always start with a base of 5 images, which I merge into a High Dynamic Range image. This way, you get a lot of detail in your shadows, but also in your higher lights. When it comes to industrial photos, I always like to apply a slightly harder edit to bring out contrasts in the image. The surroundings are usually very cold and usually translate into the image overall.

This work looks great in a larger format because of the details on the different plates and panels. Also, the light coming from different right angles accentuates not only the ceiling but also the central part of the control panel. The incident light automatically draws you to this space.

As interior advice, I recommend placing this work on a larger wall. It can range from an office to a loft, but even a contemporary living room can easily tolerate this work.

Personally, I can look at this exclusive work for hours. I am still discovering new things that I have seen for myself when visiting this power station that is no longer in operation in the meantime.