urbanexploration

Cleveland-based photographer Seph Lawless's first job was in a bustling Ohio mall. Today, that same mall appears in his photo series and book Black Friday: The Collapse of the American Shopping Mall -- a haunting series that pays homage to these victims of the recession and the online shopping revolution.

His photos really need no further introduction, and so instead of spending time describing what you could simply scroll down and see, we sat down with Lawless (digitally) to talk about the hows and whys behind this eerie photo book.

Urban exploration photography has gotten quite a bit of publicity in recent years, with more and more photographers taking their cameras to off-limits and/or abandoned parts of their city in order to see and capture what most people never get a chance to. While it may be a fun pastime of practitioners and one that leads to beautiful images, not everyone is a fan.

The National Counterterrorism Center (NCC) warns that photographs shot by urban explorers could pose a national security risk by aiding terrorists in their surveillance and planning.

Last year, New York-based guerrilla historian, urban explorer and photographer Steve Duncan gave an 18-minute talk (seen in the video above) to the audience at TEDxPhoenixville. Duncan spoke on his motivations for going deep into the underground infrastructure in major cities around the world, peeling back layers of a city to see and document things that are hidden to people above ground.