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Westpark Mental Asylum is the perfect place to start our tour.  Here for years the unwanted and bewildered were shunted until the hospital was closed down in the nineteen eighties.  The wheelchair serves as a somewhat spooky reminder of its former residences – given over to ‘care in the community’ and the place was left to moulder. Abandoned hospitals are a favorite ‘target of Urban Explorers. They resonate with the suffering of those long dead.  The fact that these abandoned places can be transformed, through the lens, into something so ethereally beautiful as this is a testament to the creativity of the photographer.

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An abandoned paper factory in France is our next stop. There are certain risks associated with urban exploration as many abandoned locations can be heavily guarded – and not just with cameras but with real live security guards.  Part of the thrill of the infiltration is to avoid these and successfully gain entry.  Pivotal in the code of urban explorers is that the entry, task (usually photographic) and exit should involve no harm to others or to the place that is being explored.   To deliberately vandalise a location is looked upon as something approaching sacrilege.  The results are remarkable.  You can almost imagine the chief of the factory sitting at his desk ordering people about.

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There are always risks in the act of urban exploration.  To begin with many of the structures are unsound and the roof could collapse at any moment – not to mention the floor giving way.  There may – in the case of abandoned industrial sites – be chemicals and other substances carelessly left to rot out of their containers.  Asbestos is a consistent problem which urban explorers must face and this forces some of them to adapt to the situation and wear respirators when they feel that their health might be affected.  There is even the potential surprise in many abandoned buildings that they could still be inhabited – by not so friendly squatters who jealously guard their home.