SHOOTING IN THE GRANITE CITY
Recently, I spent a Sunday afternoon wandering the streets of Scotland's third city, Aberdeen. The overcast skies, light drizzle, and fading light led me to choose a roll of black and white film, hoping to capture the city's mood in the brief time I had. While exploring an old disused health centre, I unexpectedly met another film photographer. We paused for a conversation, naturally sharing what we each enjoy photographing. I mentioned my interest in brutalist and 1960s architecture, of which there is a fair amount in Aberdeen.
During the conversation, he told me that the recent film Tetris set in the 1980s Soviet Union had in fact been partly shot in Aberdeen. I could imagine that with the removal of the local street signs and a sprinkling of parked Lada’s and GAZ’s parts of the Granite City could well perform as an excellent Cold War Moscow stand in.
Apparently the films director Jon S Baird, who is originally from Aberdeen, felt the area would be the perfect stand-in for Moscow in 1989 and the film's star Taron Egerton said Scotland having "greyness in abundance" was the ideal substitute for Moscow. For sure, I certainly want to see the film now, but for the time being I will make do with my shots of Aberdeengrad!
All photographed with CONTAX 645 on Kodak TMAX 400