My Underground Playground

Many question my fascination with urban exploration (“urbex”) and specifically, my love of the urban decay photography genre associated with urbex. Urbex is the exploration and documentation (in my case, documentation via the camera) of abandoned industrial infrastructure; including, in part, factories, hospitals, asylums, schools, amusement parks, power plants, retail centers, multi-unit office and housing structures, tunnels and even drainage sewers (although I have yet to partake in a “draining” adventure). Abandonments are usually inaccessible and not meant to be visible. The urbex code of conduct demands respect when visiting these forgotten places – no tagging, vandalism, destruction or theft. The urbex golden rule is: take only pictures and leave only footprints.

I am not certain if I can provide a definitive explanation as to why I am drawn to vacant sites. Why am I charmed by structural decay and putrefied artifacts, and especially when I loathe disorder, dust and broken things in my own home? Why am I compelled to visit derelict places that hold peeling paint, rusty metal, collapsed roofs, and broken glass? Why do I subject myself to potentially hazardous substances such as asbestos, lead paint, black mold or bird and rodent droppings? In my eyes, abandoned buildings are soulful. I love the way a decayed structure changes shape over time. I love the way vines embrace a building’s skeleton and the way a tree pushes through a foundation or wall to become one with the structure. Discarded objects such as furniture, tools, books, papers, toys or utensils were once prized possessions, but are now, perhaps, just sad memories of what once was. There is even a different resonance in places that no one seems to care about anymore. I find a strange sense of beauty and peacefulness within these crestfallen environments. Read more “My Underground Playground” →