A little over a week ago I went on a photo adventure to a location discovered by a new friend of mine who introduced me to photographing abandoned and forgotten buildings around Boston. Being able to photograph this type of urban decay in HDR has long been on my bucket-list, and I will be forever grateful to this person for popping into my life and taking the time to share all of her hard work in finding these forgotten places with me. I've become fascinated with capturing the beauty of decay, and the solitude I find while wandering around these ruins is comforting, and humbling. Being able to appreciate the history, the beauty, and the raw nature of these locations will always keep me coming back and looking for more.
A lot of these places, however, require a bit of law-breaking to get to, and I find myself trespassing on private and government property quite a bit to be able to capture these photos. Not only is there the danger of possibly being caught by the authorities, there is also the risk of getting hurt. Rusty nails, rotten floors and asbestos among other things are very real and very hazardous to your health if you’re not careful and very aware of the surroundings.
The following photos are from my most recent trip to a state park in Eastern Mass. I decided to reserve a campsite for a night or two so that I could spend plenty of time doing night photography and experimenting with different light-painting techniques amidst the backdrop of graffiti and decay. I initially headed out during the first day to explore the area and make note of certain locations to return to after it was dark, and these photos are from that first scouting trip.
After I returned to camp about 6 hours later I decided to nap until about midnight before heading back out to start photographing again, unfortunately the weather was not on my side. Playing with fire and photographing star-trails is pretty much impossible when there is complete cloud cover and pouring rain, so my little adventure ended on that note. I am definitely looking forward to going back and following through with my plans, hopefully with a friend though- it sure can get creepy in these places by myself!
I get quite a few inquiries as to the location of a lot of these photos, which presents me with an unusual dilemma. As a photographer, my passion, and my job, is to make beautiful photographs and share them with the world. It's what I do. Since I've started photographing 'Ruin Porn' however, I've learned that those few who take the time to seek these places out to take photographs, or simply enjoy the beauty and the history the area represents, are very adament about keeping these places off of the radar. Normally I would be tagging the location of these photos and including much more detail about the actual history of these places, but out of respect for those who wish to keep these locations secret, I'm going to omit that information- for now. If you are interested enough in learning more and finding out where these photos are coming from, then just do some research, you'd be amazed at the doors that will open for you!
