I feel “the technician at the lab may have clicked the plus yellow button a few more times” needs to be the pinned post on every film-related forum. Outstanding work here. That wide of the X-ray room is just… beautiful.
No one will ever make Portra 160 look as good as you. The shot of the phone on the wall, the x-ray light, and the 6x17 shot will all make amazing prints. I'll have to get serious about my lemonade stand business if you ever decide to make prints of those.
The singing in the background is a beautiful touch. Not only do you capture images of liminal spaces, you integrate it into the actual film itself. Such an outstanding level of duality here. Amazing work!
Man.. That heavily reverbed opera music really puts the eerieness over the top with this video. Fantastic work, though! While, yes, I'm sure my TV is compressing THE HELL out of your images' dynamic range and colors, they're still impressive.
You nailed the background music on this one. I paused the video multiple times to see if it was coming from outside my apartment or my phone. Great atmosphere
When you do these shoots I always think, 'now this is art'. A pleasure to see what you came up with. There's a late period Lewis Baltz vibe, from his time in Europe shooting sites of technology. 0:20 from the Mamiya would make a great book cover, and IMHO looks more compelling than the wide format alternative. Finally, the music was haunting, which left me imagining the patients who would have passed through these rooms receiving treatment during illness.
This. Was. Beautiful! No surprise the cinematography is so gorgeous because your eye for everything is just genius level. You're one of the best around Nick! I love your work!
The sub-liminal message of this video: Nick Carver is the best photographer on TH-cam! Rest assured that all images looked great despite the YT formatting and your video/editing work made this video a true classic!
this radiology office is full of incredible pictures; I am sure nick was glowing with excitement. the final one is so good, it should be labelled as x-rated.
Eerie yet compelling, the space I mean. Beautifully filmed video. The photographs are really unsettling - but that's because you captured what you were going for I think.
Oh man that last shot was amazing. I also loved the shot with the drawn curtain across the door and the shot with the window with the blinds casting a louvered light on the wall. Liminal Space is some amazing stuff!!
Love the slow pace and long shots of this video. As a TH-cam video editor, it's a refreshing departure from the "engaging edit". Great photos as well! Subbbbbbed
I love the reality check on "the film look" being more about the sins of the mini lab technician, over the genius of the film engineer. Great video as always.
This video is the sort of thing I go on TH-cam for. The endless gear videos or hype surrounding a camera that is marginally different to the last one do nothing for me. This sort of video reminds me why I love photography, and also reminds me how much I still have to learn.
Honestly, I love the idea that the pictures you took aren't viewed the same by all of us. Yes, it's of the same space, but our screens and eyes aren't all the same, so all of us see the same images just...different
I'd never heard of this concept or what it means. Thanks for that trip, and for the effort it takes to film these videos and photographing at the same time.
I've been doing this for a long time myself, picturing places I find perfect for a Backrooms theme, and it's so lovely to see that the Backrooms could be around any corner, even if it's not infinite.
I had a TLR for a while and the 65mm was my favorite without question. It’s a 28mm equivalent (with cropped sides) which is one of my favorite focal lengths. I’m glad to see you’re able to enjoy it too!
The vibe gave me feeling like some seriously smart serial killer doing photography for his medication but he can flip out any time and then there's coming bloody murder like some Netflix messed up IRL story or something but this vibe was so satisfying for me 😅Like vreepy mental horror but at the same time like meditation and relaxing- This guy should make Netflix horror series
Dude, I'm loving this, even on your digital camera with you setting up feels some what off. I also love how you sick to the old camera style and even bring in a proper stop watch instead of using your phone or something, just like the world is now trained to use. I wish I could get this opportunity to take photos of something so amazingly off.
I just discovered you and, let me tell you, I’m already head over heels with your art. You really have a cinematic eye. Wow. Just, wow. Also, big Navidson vibes from this video. (House of Leaves, by Danielewski).
Getting a massive Chernobyl vibe off these images ! Wow. Almost see the “ghosts” of previous users walking through. …. And then Nick says “Chernobyl”. ! Lol
Particularly loved the Green Room, the mystery of wanting to know what was around the corner of that recess in the back corner, and the colour for it was perfect, yes my favourite shot of a fabulous set.
I´ve visitted Pripyat/Chornobyl in 2017. Of course we visitted that famous hospital ... The only room I get across and spend my time was the radiology where I found plenty of exposed medium format film negatives of x-rayed chests and lungs ... creepy but a legit purpose of a radiology I guess... I love your work, your channel, your way of storytelling. Awesome.
I thought more than once on taking the youtube route, but always had this feeling that the kind of photography I do works better without context. Still conflicted on how I could translate it to video. But your video definitely didn't ruin the "magic" for me, great pictures.
I love the "Dead Inside" series. Definitely looking forward to a big book! I guess I enjoy how your photography alternating from this series to the abandoned South West commercial buildings illustrates how man, and especially business, will build and subsequently abandon anything, anywhere.
Thank you for this episode. I really like liminal photography and struggle to make interesting images. Your insights were helpful. It would be fun to darken the bottom of the hole in your last image to make it appear bottomless.
Amazing photos, the really do send a shiver up my spine, so creepy. A radiology lab is in itself such a liminal place I think, so many people have been there in a state of uncertainty.
Really love these photos and the video about them! Thank you for making these! Note on colour balance of slide film for nerds: The old gang would indeed correct in camera, but they were shooting for the slide. Shooting for the digital file, it's true that it's harder to change in post processing than with print film due to the higher density and compressed range. However, with high-dynamic range cameras, you can easily scan with enough range to change the colour balance. Films like Velvia, with high density and sharp contrast curve will give less leeway, while low-contrast slide like E100 will give you plenty. I was surprised when I realised how much range there was. Haven't tested that on the output from Epsons.
"This camera went to the Moon tax" and "Trying to make them feel uncomfortable, but good uncomfortable", have been added to the ever-growing collection of Nick Carver Homilies. Maybe a Zine with such is in your future? As always, an enjoyable episode Nick.
In my one attempt at a backrooms-esque photo, I discovered that color film under fluorescent lights really helps sell the uncanny, but familiar feeling. (Aside: I've been using an RB67 as my go-to camera for the last five months or so, but sometimes after walking for three or four miles on cobblestone, I think about supplementing it with something a bit more manageable. The C220 is on my short list. It's reassuring to see what they are capable of in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing.)
That first shot was rad! I like the hole in the middle of the room. I was hoping you were going to get a reflection shot off the double doors of the curtain shot.
Love most of your stuff but just wanted to make a few technical notes on the whole color balance issue. This came up in an earlier one of your videos, your first cinestill review I think, but I was too lazy to type it out back then. Negative color film very much has a color balance built in. It has to do with the color filters and dyes that make up an emulsion. The data sheet of each film will specify the colors expected to be delivered by an emulsion given a controlled exposure (both intensity and color). What's mind blowing is that even Tri-X, a monochrome film, has two different ISO ratings, one for daylight color and another for tungsten because of how its emulsion responds differently to various wavelengths. Again, this comes from an era when the film, exposed by a certain amount of light gave a certain density measured through a densitometer and these values were carefully defined and meant to be adhered to, in the same way that a water heater has a designated heating capacity or the engine in a car has a power and torque curve plotted out. You're right that during scanning or editing, you can easily compensate the colors of a negative film. Technically, with enough brute force you can do this with positive film scan as well. But these digital workflows are relatively recent in the much longer history of analog photography. There was a time when film scans weren't digitized, either at home or by minilabs. When working photochemically, proper color balance is much easier to achieve when corrections are applied while shooting rather than the much more tedious adjustment of printer lights. This was especially critical for motion picture film. Still photographs can have slight variations between them, both in color and exposure because they're presented as individual images. Shots in a movie are meant to cut together quickly and seamlessly. This means exposure as well as color balance are critical. On the exposure side, this is why cinema lenses are calibrated in T-stops rather than F-stops. On the color side you have color temperature meters as well as color filters for lights and lenses to compensate between the available light source in a particular scene and the color range the emulsion expects to receive to achieve the desired density curves mentioned earlier. Until the mid 2000s, all the negatives from thousands of shots in a movie from various locations and lighting conditions had to be balanced photochemically and evened out for a projection print. The more work that could be done to properly expose a negative, the less work that had to be done when printing, especially when multiple projection prints has to be struck. Some changes would have been impossible to make chemically, including the much more extreme color corrections we can do now digitally. Lastly, even outside the cinema world, in certain commercial applications such as product photography, industrial applications or medical imaging, proper color balance and accurate reproduction was much more critical than creative work. Didn't mean to make this too wordy or to sound like a smartass, just some food for thought. Even though they might seem trivial or outdated, a lot of standards, practices or definitions came to be for valid reasons throughout history.
This video has this eerie vibe I can't explain. It feels like I was watching a Black Mirror episode for some reason. 2:33 made my heart skip when the opera music started playing. lol But as always, the video production is superb as well as the photos. Thank you Nick for sharing this with us.
Specialized buildings like that look SUPER uncanny without the equipment they were designed to house. Especially with oddly shaped floors (read: anything but flat). Also, those floor plans must look wacky. Very strange corners all about in many of those rooms. If I'd seen those photos with no video context, I'd have assumed they were fake.
Hey Nic, I am also pursuing the same type of photography of liminal space with film. Thanks for making this video, it is really good to see someone with the same interest. Really impressive photo that you took. Keep going bro
Awe hell naw. We got Nick carver in the backrooms before gta 6.
Ya, I hope he made it out.
@@matthewabacaphotographer always survives???
@@ssfalk41 All the backrooms games I played so far would suggest the exact opposite lol.
We on the uncanny Nick Carver arc
🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭
I feel “the technician at the lab may have clicked the plus yellow button a few more times” needs to be the pinned post on every film-related forum.
Outstanding work here. That wide of the X-ray room is just… beautiful.
The 6x17 shot is fabulous.
Yes, and the square version is equally fabulous.
No one will ever make Portra 160 look as good as you. The shot of the phone on the wall, the x-ray light, and the 6x17 shot will all make amazing prints. I'll have to get serious about my lemonade stand business if you ever decide to make prints of those.
The singing in the background is a beautiful touch. Not only do you capture images of liminal spaces, you integrate it into the actual film itself. Such an outstanding level of duality here. Amazing work!
Man.. That heavily reverbed opera music really puts the eerieness over the top with this video.
Fantastic work, though! While, yes, I'm sure my TV is compressing THE HELL out of your images' dynamic range and colors, they're still impressive.
as someone who is in complete love with liminal spaces, this is incredible. you've done it again, nick.
"should trigger just the right amount of agoraphobia in the viewer". Sometimes you crack me up.
You nailed the background music on this one. I paused the video multiple times to see if it was coming from outside my apartment or my phone. Great atmosphere
When you do these shoots I always think, 'now this is art'. A pleasure to see what you came up with. There's a late period Lewis Baltz vibe, from his time in Europe shooting sites of technology.
0:20 from the Mamiya would make a great book cover, and IMHO looks more compelling than the wide format alternative.
Finally, the music was haunting, which left me imagining the patients who would have passed through these rooms receiving treatment during illness.
This. Was. Beautiful! No surprise the cinematography is so gorgeous because your eye for everything is just genius level. You're one of the best around Nick! I love your work!
The cinematography is just as good as the photography. Stellar video and photos.
Man this is goooooood. A lot of liminal photography has turned into "I thought this place was a little strange." This is top tier stuff.
The sub-liminal message of this video: Nick Carver is the best photographer on TH-cam! Rest assured that all images looked great despite the YT formatting and your video/editing work made this video a true classic!
this radiology office is full of incredible pictures; I am sure nick was glowing with excitement.
the final one is so good, it should be labelled as x-rated.
Great video edit, sublime music, and I love how we can hear the buzz from the lights. Bravo!
I love a good liminal space photograph, and now I also love liminal space photograph BTS videos too. Nice work, Mr Nick Carver.
Nope nope. Nick has officially start on level 1 of this own video game. So eerie and so great
Eerie yet compelling, the space I mean. Beautifully filmed video. The photographs are really unsettling - but that's because you captured what you were going for I think.
Oh man that last shot was amazing. I also loved the shot with the drawn curtain across the door and the shot with the window with the blinds casting a louvered light on the wall. Liminal Space is some amazing stuff!!
The shot at 9:15 is incredible!!!
Love the slow pace and long shots of this video. As a TH-cam video editor, it's a refreshing departure from the "engaging edit". Great photos as well! Subbbbbbed
They are great photos, no matter how bad the monitor they are great. Just the composition, oh man.
Heck yeah!! Those squares are cool, but that 6x17 at the end... chefs kiss!!
I love the reality check on "the film look" being more about the sins of the mini lab technician, over the genius of the film engineer.
Great video as always.
This is some of your best work Nick! Looks like it might be an inspiration boost for ya.
I appreciate you pulling the vail back and showing us the behind the scenes. This is a magical video my friend!
This video is the sort of thing I go on TH-cam for. The endless gear videos or hype surrounding a camera that is marginally different to the last one do nothing for me. This sort of video reminds me why I love photography, and also reminds me how much I still have to learn.
Honestly, I love the idea that the pictures you took aren't viewed the same by all of us. Yes, it's of the same space, but our screens and eyes aren't all the same, so all of us see the same images just...different
Never seen the channel before but just from this intro… I know this bout to be a banger
I'd never heard of this concept or what it means. Thanks for that trip, and for the effort it takes to film these videos and photographing at the same time.
i love the generic office shart thats on the walls, its so beige and effectively inoffensive
This felt like watching a Wes Anderson movie and educational video about film at the same time and i didnt know i needed those two things together
Absolutely love the image set, almost every single one is great, especially the 'hole in the ground' shot is amazing.
Using TLRs is so much fun. I love composing images looking down on the ground glass.
Lynne Cohen vibes, first bit of your content I've watched in a while, need to start back tracking, really enjoyed this! Great images!
good lord these shots hit the spot. as a radiologist i can so relate to these photos. and they make me wanna rewatch Stranger Things…
Love this. These should be the art on the wall of a Radiology office. The equivalent of a an X-ray of the space you are in.
I've been doing this for a long time myself, picturing places I find perfect for a Backrooms theme, and it's so lovely to see that the Backrooms could be around any corner, even if it's not infinite.
I had a TLR for a while and the 65mm was my favorite without question. It’s a 28mm equivalent (with cropped sides) which is one of my favorite focal lengths. I’m glad to see you’re able to enjoy it too!
The vibe gave me feeling like some seriously smart serial killer doing photography for his medication but he can flip out any time and then there's coming bloody murder like some Netflix messed up IRL story or something but this vibe was so satisfying for me 😅Like vreepy mental horror but at the same time like meditation and relaxing- This guy should make Netflix horror series
That last few gems about the color print films and their use was something crazy I truly didn’t know! Now that is real game!
My goodness, this quality in video and photography, you are one of the best, I mean that!
This may be the prettiest video from start to finish I've ever seen
This series is perfection, big fan.
That 6x17 with the object on the wall shaped like a chair was EXCELLENT. 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
There is not enough liminal space photography on youtube. Thanks for reminding me to shoot more liminal photography.
I genuinely can't tell if its cg or actual office, I'm guessing its the latter. What a banger of a video, storytelling and photos.
Its the familiarity that gets me.
i just love square photography but man that last picture was proper beauty and insane straight.. thumbs up.. 👍
Dude, I'm loving this, even on your digital camera with you setting up feels some what off. I also love how you sick to the old camera style and even bring in a proper stop watch instead of using your phone or something, just like the world is now trained to use.
I wish I could get this opportunity to take photos of something so amazingly off.
Need to call my Mamiya and tell her I learned about print film today. Thanks for the upload! :)
5:09 rhat hallway gives off the same level of anxiety as a loose door knob in a largely empty building.
A great subject. I felt every emotion you mentioned. In my mind I heard "It's Alive!". Also made me Google 'liminal'.
Instantly in love with that first shot. It's perfect
I just discovered you and, let me tell you, I’m already head over heels with your art. You really have a cinematic eye. Wow. Just, wow.
Also, big Navidson vibes from this video. (House of Leaves, by Danielewski).
Ha! I never imagined the tight square frames will work that good. Adds up to the overall feeling of this project and enhances it. Thanks for sharing.
There is an old saying in photography circles: “He who makes it to the moon gets to levy the tax”
Getting a massive Chernobyl vibe off these images ! Wow. Almost see the “ghosts” of previous users walking through.
…. And then Nick says “Chernobyl”. ! Lol
Particularly loved the Green Room, the mystery of wanting to know what was around the corner of that recess in the back corner, and the colour for it was perfect, yes my favourite shot of a fabulous set.
that wide shot is insane
I´ve visitted Pripyat/Chornobyl in 2017. Of course we visitted that famous hospital ... The only room I get across and spend my time was the radiology where I found plenty of exposed medium format film negatives of x-rayed chests and lungs ... creepy but a legit purpose of a radiology I guess... I love your work, your channel, your way of storytelling. Awesome.
I thought more than once on taking the youtube route, but always had this feeling that the kind of photography I do works better without context. Still conflicted on how I could translate it to video. But your video definitely didn't ruin the "magic" for me, great pictures.
TH-cam should have a 'love' button.
I love the "Dead Inside" series. Definitely looking forward to a big book! I guess I enjoy how your photography alternating from this series to the abandoned South West commercial buildings illustrates how man, and especially business, will build and subsequently abandon anything, anywhere.
Thank you for this episode. I really like liminal photography and struggle to make interesting images. Your insights were helpful. It would be fun to darken the bottom of the hole in your last image to make it appear bottomless.
Man - you could make a zine on this building alone! Awesome!
Excellent film, Nick. I find myself getting so bored with youtube photographers these days and this was a breath of fresh air.
I love liminal spaces
I actually shoot a lot of liminal scenes myself
I really enjoyed this episode thoroughly !!!
Amazing photos, the really do send a shiver up my spine, so creepy. A radiology lab is in itself such a liminal place I think, so many people have been there in a state of uncertainty.
Another great Video with a bit of a different feel to it. Love the photos and the little educational element in it.
This gives me some huge vibes from the TV show "Severance".
Cleanest 'vacated' office I have ever seen !
Ahhhhh that phone shot at 5:10 is just perfect.
definitely getting taryn simon american index of hidden and unfamiliar vibes from the room with the hole in the floor
Really love these photos and the video about them! Thank you for making these!
Note on colour balance of slide film for nerds: The old gang would indeed correct in camera, but they were shooting for the slide. Shooting for the digital file, it's true that it's harder to change in post processing than with print film due to the higher density and compressed range. However, with high-dynamic range cameras, you can easily scan with enough range to change the colour balance. Films like Velvia, with high density and sharp contrast curve will give less leeway, while low-contrast slide like E100 will give you plenty. I was surprised when I realised how much range there was. Haven't tested that on the output from Epsons.
Phew! Glad you found the exit
"This camera went to the Moon tax" and "Trying to make them feel uncomfortable, but good uncomfortable", have been added to the ever-growing collection of Nick Carver Homilies. Maybe a Zine with such is in your future? As always, an enjoyable episode Nick.
In my one attempt at a backrooms-esque photo, I discovered that color film under fluorescent lights really helps sell the uncanny, but familiar feeling. (Aside: I've been using an RB67 as my go-to camera for the last five months or so, but sometimes after walking for three or four miles on cobblestone, I think about supplementing it with something a bit more manageable. The C220 is on my short list. It's reassuring to see what they are capable of in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing.)
The big room with the round well, was most likely for a machine that was used for Radiation treatments for Cancer Patients.
Just leaving a comment to make sure the algorithm tells you this was worth doing. Landscape as the main focus, but this is a really nice tangent.
That previous x-ray room could be the next backroom mysterie story.
I got spooked watching those photos. Looks like perfect material for a liminal edition zine...
Love this , YT hasn't destroyed it thankfully the vibe is still coming through loud and clear to Melb
Love the pictures! And the place and the way the video is shot really remindes me of the show severance. If anybody saw that. Great great show.
That first shot was rad! I like the hole in the middle of the room. I was hoping you were going to get a reflection shot off the double doors of the curtain shot.
I just love your sound work, every piece of gear from the cameras to the bags feel so tactile it's awesome.
Love most of your stuff but just wanted to make a few technical notes on the whole color balance issue. This came up in an earlier one of your videos, your first cinestill review I think, but I was too lazy to type it out back then.
Negative color film very much has a color balance built in. It has to do with the color filters and dyes that make up an emulsion. The data sheet of each film will specify the colors expected to be delivered by an emulsion given a controlled exposure (both intensity and color). What's mind blowing is that even Tri-X, a monochrome film, has two different ISO ratings, one for daylight color and another for tungsten because of how its emulsion responds differently to various wavelengths. Again, this comes from an era when the film, exposed by a certain amount of light gave a certain density measured through a densitometer and these values were carefully defined and meant to be adhered to, in the same way that a water heater has a designated heating capacity or the engine in a car has a power and torque curve plotted out.
You're right that during scanning or editing, you can easily compensate the colors of a negative film. Technically, with enough brute force you can do this with positive film scan as well. But these digital workflows are relatively recent in the much longer history of analog photography. There was a time when film scans weren't digitized, either at home or by minilabs. When working photochemically, proper color balance is much easier to achieve when corrections are applied while shooting rather than the much more tedious adjustment of printer lights. This was especially critical for motion picture film. Still photographs can have slight variations between them, both in color and exposure because they're presented as individual images. Shots in a movie are meant to cut together quickly and seamlessly. This means exposure as well as color balance are critical. On the exposure side, this is why cinema lenses are calibrated in T-stops rather than F-stops. On the color side you have color temperature meters as well as color filters for lights and lenses to compensate between the available light source in a particular scene and the color range the emulsion expects to receive to achieve the desired density curves mentioned earlier. Until the mid 2000s, all the negatives from thousands of shots in a movie from various locations and lighting conditions had to be balanced photochemically and evened out for a projection print. The more work that could be done to properly expose a negative, the less work that had to be done when printing, especially when multiple projection prints has to be struck. Some changes would have been impossible to make chemically, including the much more extreme color corrections we can do now digitally. Lastly, even outside the cinema world, in certain commercial applications such as product photography, industrial applications or medical imaging, proper color balance and accurate reproduction was much more critical than creative work.
Didn't mean to make this too wordy or to sound like a smartass, just some food for thought. Even though they might seem trivial or outdated, a lot of standards, practices or definitions came to be for valid reasons throughout history.
those artworks on the wall were staring at me....... MENACINGLY!
This video has this eerie vibe I can't explain. It feels like I was watching a Black Mirror episode for some reason. 2:33 made my heart skip when the opera music started playing. lol
But as always, the video production is superb as well as the photos. Thank you Nick for sharing this with us.
Specialized buildings like that look SUPER uncanny without the equipment they were designed to house. Especially with oddly shaped floors (read: anything but flat).
Also, those floor plans must look wacky. Very strange corners all about in many of those rooms.
If I'd seen those photos with no video context, I'd have assumed they were fake.
This has so much „Severance“ vibes, excellent work!!!
Im in love with the style of this video and rhe chill vibe of talking through
so glad i just found your channel!!
Hey Nic, I am also pursuing the same type of photography of liminal space with film. Thanks for making this video, it is really good to see someone with the same interest. Really impressive photo that you took. Keep going bro
I love how you don't show a window or any kind of reference to the outside world till the end of the video
this video except the sound of the lights at the beginning never stops getting louder
Dudeeee, that las photo! as soon as a saw it i started to ask those same question you posed afterwards!!! amazing work as always!
The colors in these photos are fantastic!
the last pic is my very definition of liminal space. to me if a photo makes me go "where the fk am I?" that usually checks the box. NICE SHOT!
I was like, why is Nick shooting on an old Mamiya TLR? Awesome story.