Photographer Documents Australia’s Fading Towns and Forgotten Buildings

Matt Growcoot
A weathered, old-fashioned building with a faded "Milk Bar" sign, large front windows displaying photos, a smiley face poster, and a wide overhang, set on an empty street under a clear blue sky.
Helin Bereket

A photographer traveled across rural parts of South Australia, documenting abandoned buildings and towns that have fallen into decline.

Helin Bereket initially set out to cover Australia’s silo art but was struck by the buildings around them that were decaying.

“It’s not about ghost towns in the traditional sense, but rather places that exist in a kind of limbo: partly lived in, partly forgotten,” Bereket tells PetaPixel. “The project shows the quiet beauty and stark reality of these spaces, places where history lingers in crumbling facades, fading signs, and empty streets. It’s a portrait of towns suspended between past and present.”

An old, weathered wooden building with a rusted tin roof stands abandoned in a dry grassy field, surrounded by trees and a wire fence under a clear sky. A faded sign reads "Hall" above the porch.

A sunlit street view of two vintage storefronts: "V. Carnegie General Store" and "Quality Butchers." A dog walks on the sidewalk in front of the shops, and a road sign stands at the curb.

Old, weathered wooden storefronts with peeling paint and rusted roofs line a quiet, empty street under clear blue skies. Overhead power lines and a red brick chimney are visible.

A partially constructed or dilapidated wooden house stands in a dry, grassy field, surrounded by scattered trees under a clear blue sky.

A weathered, corrugated metal building with rusted roof panels and peeling white paint sits beside a rural road under a cloudy sky. Trees are visible in the background. Signs on the building indicate it is a plumbing business.

Bereket began shooting Abandoned Australia in March 2025 during a road trip to Victoria and South Australia. Over the month-long trip, the project evolved “organically” as she began to explore rural areas.

“Whenever I found myself in these areas, I spent some time wandering, observing, and documenting,” Bereket says. “I wasn’t searching for specific subjects so much as responding to what I found. Often, I’d arrive in a town for the silo art, only to stumble across an abandoned hall, a derelict house, or a fading main street.”

The photographer says she was looking for structures that “still tell a story; the kind of places that make you wonder who once lived there, and what happened.”

A small, weathered, single-story house with a metal roof and light-colored siding stands by a road under a clear sky. Two windows and a door are visible, with minimal vegetation around and a tree to the right.

An old, weathered house with peeling paint and boarded windows sits in a dry, yellow grassy field, surrounded by trees and a clear blue sky.

A weathered, old-fashioned building with a faded "Milk Bar" sign, large front windows displaying photos, a smiley face poster, and a wide overhang, set on an empty street under a clear blue sky.
Helin Bereket

A weathered, single-story brick house with a corrugated metal roof and wraparound porch sits in a dry, rural landscape with sparse trees and grass under a partly cloudy sky.

A weathered, single-story wooden house with a tin roof stands on dry, sandy ground. Another smaller house is visible in the background under a cloudy sky. Scattered debris and sparse vegetation surround the scene.

Bereket’s photos are not the usual kind of urban explorer photos because the towns she visited still had people living in them.

“I didn’t want to trespass,” she explains. “Plus, the outsides usually told enough of the story: peeling paint, broken windows, old signs. You can read so much from that alone. And honestly, with Australia’s snakes and spiders, I wasn’t too keen on poking around inside.”

A small, weathered house with a rusty corrugated metal roof, peeling light blue paint, and a chain-link fence. Bushes and dry grass surround the yard, and a tall palm tree stands beside the house.

An old, weathered wooden house with a tin roof stands in a dry, grassy field, surrounded by tall trees under a clear blue sky.

A weathered, single-story house with solar panels on the roof sits in a dry, sandy yard with sparse vegetation and a wooden fence in front. A carport and some trees are visible in the background.

A small, weathered wooden building labeled "STATE AGENT" stands between trees and other houses. Its windows are old, and the yard is grassy, with a sign for "Australia" visible on the left.

An old, weathered white brick building with faded paint and large, closed wooden doors stands beside a road, partially obscured by overgrown trees and bushes under a clear sky.

Bereket, who used a Nikon Zfc for the project, says she found the sense of emptiness difficult.

“These towns are not bustling with people, so photographing them sometimes felt like documenting absence itself. There’s also a delicate balance in portraying them respectfully, without reducing them to stereotypes of ‘ghost towns.’ Honoring the quiet dignity of these places, while still acknowledging their decline, was a challenge I thought about constantly.”

More of Bereket’s work can be found on her website and Instagram.

Image credits: Photographs by Helin Bereket

,
, , , , , , ,
PetaPixel articles may include affiliate links; if you buy something through such a link, PetaPixel may earn a commission.
Related Articles
Photographer Sneaks Into Radioactive Ghost Towns in Fukushima
Photographs of Models of Photographs of Abandoned Buildings
feature Photographer Captures Britain’s Decay From Asylums to Air Bases
Photographer Spent 5 Years Capturing the Beauty of Decaying Buildings
Discussion