Curiosity of forbidden places is a trait of human nature, and leads people to seek out and explore their own niche environments. Some folk take to scaling buildings, others burrow in drains and caves. My personal passion is dereliction; places left behind after people have moved on, scenes from another time, with a particular fondness for curative, industrial, and more recently historical sites.
Hidden behind the sleepy village of the same name, Krampnitz was originally built for the German cavalry and later used the Soviet army for pretty much the same thing. Today it’s a vast complex of trashed barracks, overgrown parade grounds, and rusting machinery, but it also presents some photogenic secrets for those inclined to keep digging.
Located just 30 minutes south of Berlin, Beelitz Heilstätten is an urban explorer’s paradise. The former tuberculosis therapy centre features 64 architecturally fascinating buildings in various states of decay / vandalism, and has a long history speckled with famous patients such as Hitler and Honecker. What a lovely destination for a day in the snow …
I can’t walk past an abandoned building, even on holiday, even if it’s raining and I know the pictures will be rubbish. This was very much the case with Antigua and the Half Moon Bay Hotel, though something I couldn’t guess as we walked up the beach in a storm was how much filth we’d uncover once we started poking around the history behind this place. A tale of corruption, scandal, and global fraud; this rabbit hole goes deep…
Mortuaries are irresistible to freaks like me. I clump them under ‘hospitals’ as an important part of the Urbex Big Five; asylums, hospitals, military, industrial, and religious sites. They’re also few and far between, being either part of an active site or one of the first places to fall victims to looters as soon as they enter a derelict state. My advice? Get in.
Our third day in the exclusion zone starts with the now familiar breakfast, blue skies, and bright sunshine. Conditions aren’t ideal for the brooding images I had hoped for as we planned this trip, only Darren is happy since the weather couldn’t…
Our first full day in the Zone was to be an intense mixture of photography and education, even if we had no idea what was in store for us as Darren and I ate a familiar breakfast (same as last night’s dinner…
Day One sees our intrepid adventurers travel to Kiev via London, pass security checkpoints manned by armed guards, and enter the officially designated “Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Zone of Alienation” for our most ambitious UrbEx photography project to date. We’ll be spending two and a half days in Chornobyl, mostly visiting the countryside around the power plant and in particular Pripyat, an “atomograd” city for 50,000 inhabitants abandoned since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in April 1986.
Started by a determined young French aristocrat smuggled to British shores, Laverstoke Mill went on to manufacture paper for England’s bank notes. Today it’s the home of Bombay Sapphire gin. Join our intrepid photographer on a cold May morning in 2010 for a tour with a difference.