Urbex is short for urban exploration: exploring places built by people that are no longer used for their original purpose. On EOSfoto, it mainly means photographing abandoned factories, care institutions, monasteries and other buildings.

The word is also used for exploring tunnels, climbing buildings and entering locations still in use. These are different activities with different risks. A spectacular photograph online does not make them comparable or give anyone permission to visit.

Why I photograph abandoned buildings

My interest in industry began at the Julia mine, where my father worked and where I often spent time nearby as a child. The photographs I took later preserve something that has since disappeared. At the time, people thought it odd that I was photographing an old power station. Surely you took photographs of something beautiful?

That is still an important part of the appeal for me. Different things become visible in an empty building. The structure, the position of a machine and the connections between rooms stand out once everyday use has stopped. Sometimes an ordinary corridor is more interesting than the spot where everyone takes the same picture.

The history matters too, but it needs to be accurate. A nickname is not evidence of a former function. A chair does not turn a room into a treatment room, and a story on five websites may have been copied five times from the same unreliable source.

Leaving a place as you find it

“Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints” is a familiar principle in urbex. To me, that also means not arranging an interior for the next photograph. Moving a piano to a window or putting cups on a chair does not preserve a location. It is building a set in someone else’s property.

Even small objects stay where they are. A resident’s file, letter or photograph is not simply an interesting detail either. Personal information and private stories should not be legible on a website. Where necessary, I make such details unreadable, and I do not publish a family history based on whatever is in a cupboard.

Vandalism and theft are not part of my photography. Neither is forcing a door because, after a long drive, you are determined to get inside. The distance you travelled changes nothing about who owns the building.

A photograph is not an entry ticket

An abandoned building is not automatically open to everyone. Permission must come from someone entitled to give it. A photographer who went inside before cannot pass that right to the next visitor. Read more in Urbex and the law.

Conditions can change quickly. On return visits, I sometimes found that rooms I had photographed earlier had already collapsed. A photograph cannot tell you whether a floor still supports weight, whether equipment really has been disconnected or what substances have been left behind. A camera and a good reason to take pictures do not change that.

Why I do not reveal more location details

The names on this website are often aliases. One building may have several names, and different photographers sometimes use the same nickname for different buildings. I therefore do not add exact addresses, coordinates or descriptions of entrances to the reports.

Some places have since been demolished, converted or occupied again. An old series is not a current status update. Even when a building is known by its real name, this remains a report of a visit, rather than directions.

For me, urbex is not a competition to tick off as many locations as possible. A small series preserving something of a building has more value than another staged picture of the same chair in front of the same window.