Gates Series 1: First level of the unused Pickering Brook tennis courts

I discovered these old unused tennis courts about two years ago when I was looking for locations to take pictures of SCN (seriously cute niece). At the time I made a mental note to come back sometime and get some other pictures.

So now, about two years later I have finally done it as part of my Gate Series of pictures.

There are three ‘main’ entry gates to these old courts and they will become Series 1 to 3 of my focus on gates. Each of the gates opens into two full-sized tennis courts and each of these double tennis courts is on a level about 1.5 metres higher then the next. So from the first set of two end-to-end courts down to the last set the is a fall of about three metres.

Following are two pictures from this first series taken on the first and highest level set of tennis courts. The first, appropriately, is of the entry gate itself. The second is from within taken facing towards the entry gate. It shows the weeds and bushes growing through the court’s surface and the old service net.

A feature of the second shot is the blue coloured fence which separates this set of courts from the lower level set of courts which will be featured on Series 2.

With this second shot I tried to get an angle that made the blue fence on the left look ‘solid’. I had to take five pictures are different angles to get this perfect angle to make the fence a solid blue as it goes towards the vanishing point.

In this shot you can see the next level down set of tennis courts that I will feature in Series 2 of my gates series. In fact you can almost make out the gate just before the second fence post from the front.

I like this picture. I like the court markings that are almost totally bleached away, the black court surface going grey and becoming very cracked, the tufts of weeds that have grown in cracks in the bitumen surface, and the old service net that has somehow managed to survive ten to fifteen years in the sun and rain.

Each of the pictures above links to 1600 pixel wide versions in SmugMug.

Feel free to let me know what you think.