The story of an INSANE walk in the park!

Decommissioned prison converted into infamous Gotham’s infamous criminal asylum

The local prison is one of my favorite locations to walk and take pictures in Guelph. The Guelph Correctional Centre was decommissioned in 2002, but recently a film crew came to utilize the exterior of the penitentiary and we had a chance to visit the set. On an afternoon walk, I was able to capture some rare images of the institution with its windows unboarded and transformed into the infamous Arkham Asylum.

I’ve always been drawn to the storytelling structure of graphic novels. While I’m not an avid comic book enthusiast, versions of the Batman story narrative have been adapting and evolving across nearly every medium available. From Blockbuster Movies, television adaptations, product advertising, and immersive video game experiences, the Dark Knight has risen to the forefront of our popular culture.

Yet, what fascinates me is the remarkable consistencies in each iteration of the story. The Batbrand is governed by precedents that each new storyteller considers when approaching the subject.

In University, I spent my hours pursuing the practice of storytelling. At one time, it was not uncommon to find me in the library scribbling away in a notebook late at night. Writing drafts for a Batman story of my own in hopes of one day adding to the tapestry of compelling variations of this story.

While this is not exactly what I’d imagined back then, this INSANE walk in the park offered me an instant opportunity to work with Arkham Asylum props on-site including gates, flags, and vehicles.

Turning this into a self-assignment, I set out to test my abilities and push myself to create something new from the photos I had captured. Below I have shared the deliverables from this expedition and broken down my approach to creating each image.

At the Gates // Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane

The front gate was the most impressive addition to the property that weekend. While most visitors stopped to pose for a quick selfie by the temporary Arkham Asylum gates, I took my time to explore the familiar yet refreshed environment.

This project resulted in taking three photographs from my walkabout and creating composite images, each of which portrayed an enhanced representation of the original capture.

For the first image (depicted above), I worked to create a dramatic arrival scene.

After playing with this image in Lightroom to create my base layer, I moved the image to Photoshop to begin manipulating the elements. Now on our digital walkabout, a thick layer of fog began to roll in and the sky changed to grey and stormy in an instant. As the lighting cracks beyond the asylum walls, visitors are discouraged from sticking around by a weathered sign that reads, Arkham Asylum NO STOPPING Violators Are Subject to Prosecution on the doorstep of Gotham’s home to the criminally insane.

We step beyond the gates of sanity with our next image...

The Church // A Serious House on Serious Earth

Let's continue our walk beyond the gates of the infamous Arkham Asylum. We regularly visit this prison on evening outings and the church is by far the most interesting part of the property.

Having already observed this subject at length and photographed it in a variety of styles in the past, I felt there needed to be an additional layer of story that would give this image greater depth.

This fictional madhouse serves as the home to the criminally insane, the quote that is included was pulled from the pages of a personal favorite of mine, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. As Batman enters an overthrown asylum at the request of The Joker, the page reads “You’re in the real world now and the lunatics have taken over the asylum.” When assessing the images for this project, I found that the toppled barrels could represent a shift in power while desaturating the environment would result in a more haunting sense of darkness.

To properly capture this thematic choice, I focused my attention on two things...

Emotion: We built an emotional state around our subject by shifting the nature of the vibrant spring colors to a muted rustic pallet and layering in fog for added depth.

Story: Let's face it, without a good headline this is just another picture of two barrels knocked over in the grass. By adding the distressed logo and a meaningful pull quote from the pages of an iconic Batman graphic novel set in Arkham Asylum, we are able to inject an element of storytelling that made the image feel complete.

Stitch it all together and we get a shot of one of my favorite subjects with a unique perspective that makes it fresh and interesting.

GCPD // Arkham City

For my last major undertaking with this series, I decided to remove our subject from its original context and ride along with the Gotham City Police Department as they hit the streets of Arkham City.

Onset that day there were several vehicles parked including this pair of Dodge Chargers with a silky matte black finish and Gotham Police markings. As I worked with this image, I first edited the car in Lightroom to dial in the lighting and colors I wanted to work with, before searching for a cityscape that would provide the desired Arkham City video game style backdrop.

A common storytelling trope in the DC Universe has been the collision of worlds, with heroes often crossing over to a parallel version of reality to complete their objective. To emulate that narrative, our GCPD cruiser was transported to the fast-moving streets of a dark metropolis.

While it might walk the line of cheesy photoshop for some, I found that the exaggerated nature of this image helped capture the otherworldly theme that I was seeking to create with this Arkham series.

Overall, this self-assignment has been an unexpected pleasure. Working with these assets over the course of a few months in my spare time had been a welcome distraction in a period of prolonged lockdowns.