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Urban Exploration

by dave
Nov , 2
Urban Exploration

Tales of Adventures is what you make of it. What would constitute an adventure for me might be ordinary and bland to you, what constitutes everyday life for me might just be the adventure of a lifetime for someone else. It is all about perspective. Perspective. A wonderful concept that colors all of our lives and builds our individual belief systems off of our individually shared history.

All of us have an individual history, sometimes the journey to build that history is shared with others. Personal stories is what sparked the idea for the Tattoo Stories Project and personal stories is the concept that drives my love for UrbanEx (Urban Exploration). In my part of Texas often “urban” can be easily replaced with “rural”, but the idea is the same. The ruins of our society, slowly melting back into the landscape piece by piece, hour by hour stand as a testament to the history of individuals and a shared community.

Individually shared histories, everything from an old gas station to a church, a factory, a steel mill, a widowers home…all of them had people who worked those jobs, people who interacted with the building in some place in time. All of those buildings reverberate with the individual spirit of the shared history. When I step into a modern ruin I can’t help but have a sense of wonderment, excitement for being there, trying to drink in all the sights and details to build an overall snapshot of all the lives, all the histories involved.

There are some rules for UrbanEx that I follow:

1. Bring a friend. This is especially true when entering an old structure. If something falls, you fall or something collapses self-aid may not be enough.
2. Shoot it today. Never assume you can return on a different day when the lighting is better or in a few months when the vegetation is different. It may not be there. So shoot it now and return later to try again.
3. Take nothing but photos. As tempting as it may be to “save” an artifact from assured destruction, it is not yours. Where as it may be easy to talk your way out of wearing handcuffs by explaining you’re intentions, the moment you put that item in your pocket an officer is no longer dealing with trespassing, he’s dealing with burglary of a building.
4. Be wary of trespassing. You may not have permission to be somewhere but in an abandoned building that is different than blatantly ignoring posted trespassing notices, purple fence posts or locked doors. For the really big (read: high profile) locations I’ve always tried to get legitimate access. Many who pursue UrbanEx don’t but I’m sort of a fan of not being arrested and having my expensive camera gear taken as evidence.

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