Urban Exploration (2004 / 2009)

The first abandoned building I went into was also the same building I was born in. After that, I became pretty obsessed with scouring maps for old buildings and factories that were no longer in use, researching their history and finding a way inside of them. I was also very into photography at the time and the abandoned buildings made great places to experiment with long exposures and light painting.

We also took the tunnel bus to Detroit a few times to check out buildings there, including the infamous Michigan Central Station - an abandoned building so popular with photographers that it became the icon of the "ruins porn" backlash against the popularity of urban exploration itself. Not surprisingly, it was the only time I ran into other explorers in a building.

In New York, I found the abandoned Wardencliffe laboratory of Nikola Tesla. In Australia, I met a few explorers that took us into underground storm drains and world war ii gun placements. In New Zealand, we tracked down an abandoned psychiatric hospital that had recently been used for army simulations. A few moments were sketchy, but I had a lot of fun and the community around urban exploration is very interesting.