Boiler Room + 100 years of dust

Tonight my model Rami Erickson and I decided to test a new spot for photography-The boiler room of my studio at the Q.Arma. Now, I know this is no new take on gritty environments, but we didn't set out to  reinvent the process, just have fun and shoot!  I wanted to test the spot for another shoot this week with Amanda Harris from Ginger Jake anyways. 

We started shooting on a set of stairs and I decided that I wanted to get up to a higher angle. First, I just crawled up the wall and jammed myself in, but the wall ate my shoe as you can see. My next move was to use a ladder and get as high as I could. NOTE TO SELF: Old buildings have dusty pipes, don't wear your nice clothes! I came down covered in all this black stuff you see in the photo looking like a coal miner. Pretty nasty, but we got some cool shots. The stairway goes to an older looking bathroom with a rickety door that lets a ton of light thru, so I stuck a light in there as well as in the hall and under the stairs. Next we moved into the actual boiler room which is super spooky and hotter than hell! We played with a couple ideas until we worked out these finals. I loved the old degraded look of the machines so much I decided to shoot a couple shots of the boiler and pipes just for kicks. My lighting tools were 2 v-flats, 3 heads in various spots and a beauty dish.