I do love capturing abandoned places. I love to imagine the echoes of lives and events that happened in a place in contrast with what’s left behind.
Although Calder Park is still used for drag races etc., and those parts are in good nick, the stands in the old Thunderdome section are completely overgrown and in disrepair. Aparently this location was last used for AUSCAR races around 20 years ago.
I've seen lots of shots from this spot over the years, and a few youtube videos of people exploring the site.
Image from a post in comments section of my facebook page by Dean Notman.
I decided to have a look around on New Year's Day 2021. Following the lead of a really old youtube video, I could pretty much walk straight in, with multiple fences full of holes and in complete disrepair. My assumption is that no one is managing the location and it's been abandoned to the elements.
My abandoned photography philosophy is to only enter when there is an open path or door, never break and enter, never damage or deface, and to leave everything as it was found
I posted this series on January 3 to a few Abandoned Vic and Abandoned Aus facebook pages. I could not believe the response that the images received. This is the first of my images that have ever gone 'viral' Within a few days they had been shared almost 200,000 times, and been seen by 835,000 people. Absolutely incredible!
Reading through the hundreds of comments was a real eye opener. To me, this is an abandoned place like many others I've explore, but to thousands of people it was a place that was special in their earlier lives. Thousands of people used to go here to watch car races, and to see it in it's current state was a shock to so many. Reading about their experiences, seeing some of the old photos, and reading stories from ex drivers and workers was pretty special. I had a couple of magazines approach me to publish the images, but it turns out there are still events from time to time, and different parts of the complex are still used. As I wasn't there with 'permission' as I thought it was completely abandoned, I couldn't use these images for any kind of profit.
UPDATE - Unauthorised use of these images on facebook by Route 66 Custom Car Club.
The only disappointing part of this experience is a member of the public contacted me to let me know that Route 66 Custom Car Club had posted the images on their page without any credit to me, or having shared the images from my page. I sent the club a number of SMSes with no response, my final SMS asking for my name to be added eg 'Images by Luke David Photography' or I would report the post for IP infringement. No response.
Not knowing if they had received the SMSs I sent an email introducing myself and asking for them to add a credit. A club representative replied saying that they liked my images, someone had sent them to them, and that if I reported their post they would pass my name to the police for 'breaking and entering'. Charming. As I never mentioned IP infringement in the email, it proves that they got the SMS, but just didn't bother replying. For complete transparency, the email chain is below. I never got a reply to my final email. Their email comment 'remember never bite the hand that feeds you' is just bizarre as it's my work feeding them. They normally get 3 or 4 likes on a post, this one is now around 133 with 203 shares. Small peanuts but it's their dismissive attitude which really annoys me.
A couple of people had commented in some of the photos on their page about who the photographer was, which I answered and said that for some reason the page didn't want to give me credit. All the comments have now been deleted.
It's really bizarre, all I was looking for was "yeah mate no worries" and for them to type five words in their post.
Oh well. It's old news now I guess. This is something that every photographer experiences from time to time.
How hard should you push for your rights to be respected vs risk causing more trouble than it's worth?
I'll be going back to watermarking my images on social media from now on so credit is guaranteed when someone posts my work.
