Urban exploration is not a new concept. The first Infiltrations were performed by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) students in the 1950’s who performed tunnelling explorations into the catacombs running underneath their campus.
Today Urban Exploration, often abbreviated to 'Urbex' and 'UE' has made the transition from cult hobby to mainstream movement thanks to a drop in the price of digital camera technology and blogging.
The website www.28dayslater.co.uk, named after Danny Boyles’ 2002 post-apocalyptic movie is a main hub for UK urban exploration, and boasts over 7000 active users posting reviews and pictures as well as conversation and networking. Arguably this takes the movement away from its guerrilla roots.
People call modern society a ‘Nanny state' because there are less opportunities to do something truly dangerous, something that really gives people a rush. Urban Exploration is also a chance for people to regress to childhood once again, something that professional photographer and digital artist Ed Brandon was keen to point out when he spoke to Navigator.
“Urbex is a way to regain the childlike wonder that’s missing from so much of adult life. Being somewhere you’re not supposed to be, creeping around in an immense old building, never knowing what you’re going to find."
Ed's website devotes a lot of its space to Urban Exploration and his facebook page has reached over 2000 subscribers since it went live six months ago.
- Published courtesy of Ed Brandon (Click to enlarge)
Ed Broke into Urbex in 2007 after coming across it online. “After seeing shots of Cane Hill Asylum on the web I just had to explore something like that for myself, I couldn’t believe that something so mysterious, so immense was hidden just behind a tree line in suburban Britain.”
Buildings such as the Cane Hill Asylum exist all over the UK, Post industrialism and several economic downturns in the 20th Century led to buildings being abandoned intact and many remain furnished.
A few months later and 200 miles from Cane Hill, Ed found himself on business in Lincoln and decided to take his interest further and mount his first exploration. Finding an abandoned mansion online was the easy part, the next thing was to actually find the location.
“I asked the driver of a cab I was in if he knew the place, he said he’d never heard of it in the 20 years he had been working in the area. In the end we found the gates and I climbed out, jumped the fence and made my way up the over grown pathway towards the hall passing an old lodge which itself was interesting with its intact stove, peeling floral wallpaper and crumbling staircase. A little further on I found the hall, and while there was not much left of it what remained was captivating overgrown with vines, trees growing up through once grand hallways, fireplaces protruding out over non-existent floors, beautiful and amazing.” From that point on Ed was hooked.
There are of course dangers to Urban Exploration, many of the buildings contain chemicals, dust, vermin, and on top of that, many of these buildings are close to collapse.
There is also the question of legality. Trespass is a somewhat minor offence and prosecutions for it are usually rare but a minority of people have, on occasion decided to cause damage to a building, or take something from a site. This has led to the golden rule of UE: - ‘Take only photographs, leave only footprints’.
- Published courtesy of Ed Brandon (Click to enlarge)
Documenting what is left is a task Ed is taking on professionally with two upcoming projects. “The golden age for Urban Exploration is already beginning to come to a close” he says. “But I am looking get my first book published (entitled ‘Behind the High Walls’) as well as a history of the old county Asylums, these asylums will be sorely missed. They’re just immense playgrounds of possibility.”
Ed Brandon is based in Peterborough UK and uses a Nikon D700 camera with a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 Sigma 12-24mm f/3.5 lens. For more information please check his website out at www.anotherstateofmind.zenfolio.com and on Facebook by searching for 'Another state of mind Urban Exploration.'
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