Portfolio Category - Portrait Awards 2014

Through this project I wanted to capture the industrial heritage that England and Bulgaria have. During the Communism Bulgaria saw an immense growth in its economy and there were a large amount of factories spread all over the country. The government was building those substantial by size industrial estates. However, when the Communist regime fell in 1989, huge amount of the production was cut due to decrease in the subsidiaries from the Soviet Union. Many factories were privatised and left abandoned to present times. Currently Bulgaria has plenty derelict factories most of which are not used at all. Only few are being demolished for new ones to be built. I am really interested in the scale of those buildings and what place they took in the certain town/city. In order to show how important this is for me I decided to include myself in the frames, turning the projects to a completely different level. It becomes something far more sophisticated and personal. I came up with the idea to position myself in the exact same place in each composition as well as the distance. This is because I would like my images, when potentially exhibited, to form a symmetry or more of a harmony with each other. The industrialism in the UK is at a far more different stage. Abandoned factories are not frequently seen as they get turned into new industrial or housing estates.