Dereliction is always subject that catches the photographer’s eye.

Seeing things that were once beautiful but are now degrading seem to fascinate us within the photography world. We often see weather faced individuals in portraits and of course many derelict buildings, boats and other items being presented. Perhaps it is ease to instil the sense of a story in such images which attracts to us.

This set of images I have realised, was the start of such a photographic fascination for myself, before morphing the ideas into other directions.

Some friends and I found whilst looking for derelict buildings to photograph the world of Urbexing, short for Uban Exploring. This is where people will use the law of trespass in their favour and not just photograph from a public right of way, but find ways into buildings or sites (without breaking and entering) and then explore/photograph the building or site. If caught, as long you have not caused any damage and you leave when asked there is no criminal case to answer. It should be noted that there is a list of building/site types where this does not apply like airfields, MOD, railways etc… Also, these site/building were extremely dangerous places.

So, for a while we had great fun researching protentional building/sites and then exploring them. As we were always aware that we could be caught and asked to leave at any minute, we had to work quickly. I nearly always bracketed my images which also allowed HDR (which was amazingly in fashion then!). The adrenalin of such capers turned a simple photographic trip into an exciting mission. I feel there is an edginess to many of the images which is perhaps a reflection of my emotions and was remembering the adrenalin of being in the location whilst re touching.