York Hall, Kings Park

November, 2008

Kings Park is a mostly abandoned psychiatric hospital complex on the north shore of Long Island. It's not entirely abandoned, though: there are a few operating buildings and residences, and part of the site is the Nissequogue River State Park, but for the most part the acreage is a silent collection of assorted structures quietly going to seed.

The building above is York Hall, an auditorium at the entrance to the state park section. This infrared image is a panorama composed of six images. I shot this a little differently than my other panos in that all of the images were made vertically. Shooting vertically means there's less distortion on the sides, and the stitching is easier to perform. It also means you need to take at least twice the number of pictures in order to create the view you want, but given the quality of the results, the time and and space is worth it. It also affords you a taller image since you're using the long end of the aspect ratio for your height, so this makes for a bigger picture overall, which in turn means better detail. The printed sized of this picture is 11" x 22 3/4".

What I love about this image is the way Building 93 stands as a dark sentinel off in the distance at the far left, in contrast to the bright sunshine on the auditorium facade.