urbex

Photos Take Us Inside Nara Dreamland, An Abandoned Theme Park in Japan

Nara Dreamland was a theme park in Japan that was built back in 1961 and inspired by Disneyland. After the number of visitors dropped, the theme park was permanently closed in 2006 and has been abandoned ever since. French photographer Victor Habchy took his camera into the run-down park to capture what it looks like after 10 years of neglect.

Eerie Photos of an Abandoned Animal Testing Facility

About 5 years ago, the last employees that worked here left. The company was bought by a Swiss giant in the industry and they decided to move the facility. The site this facility was built on was rented, but the new owners did not renew the contract.

This New Documentary Follows the Top Urbex Photographers in Europe

The best Urbex photographers in Europe—13 young shooters from the cities of Berlin, Amsterdam, Vienna, Prague and Bratislava—are the subject of the latest documentary generating some hype in the photo world. It's called Run The World, and its first trailer is dripping with a devil-may-care attitude.

Photographer Sneaks Into Radioactive Ghost Towns in Fukushima

After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was devastated by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, the nuclear disaster caused a major evacuation and the creation of an exclusion zone around the old plant. Five years later, a photographer has ventured into the zone to deliver photos to the outside world.

Capturing the Most Beautiful Castle in Italy Before It’s Auctioned Off

Castello di Sammezzano (Non Plus Ultra) has to be the most beautiful castle in Italy. Often called abandoned, it's not actually so; every once in a while it is opened to the public for a guided tour and volunteers take care of the place. At the moment it is being auctioned to the highest bidder.

Photographing ‘The World’s Most Haunted Island’ in Venice

Who wouldn’t want to explore one of the world’s most haunted places given the chance? Okay, on second thought, maybe most people... Well, while on holiday with my family in Venice, I was recently given that chance and I wasn’t going to turn it down.

Shooting One of the Most Beautiful Abandoned Buildings in the World

Once this was the most glorious building of Romania but since 1990 it’s been abandoned and slowly but surely falling apart. The building is now listed as a historic monument by the Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs of Romania.

It Wasn’t Abandoned: How One Urbex Photographer Found a Friend

Exploring and photographing abandoned houses always comes with its share of surprises. It also often confronts you with some moral questions and scenarios -- there are many “what if’s” that can be associated with this hobby.

Photos of Abandoned Places Found in New York City

For the past few years, photographer Will Ellis has been locating, exploring, and documenting obscure abandoned places in New York City. His images show everything from the ruins of old hospitals to abandoned subway terminals -- and sometimes the photos are one last glimpse of those spaces before they're reclaimed or reduced to rubble by developers or the government.

A Time-Lapse Journey Into the Sewer System Beneath Manchester, England

Photographer CJ from substormflow is passionate about exploring sewer systems, and he wants to show the world the unique underground architecture that most people never get to see. The video above is a glimpse into the hidden system of old culverts and sewers beneath the bustling city of Manchester in England.

Eerie Photos of an Abandoned NASCAR Speedway

The North Wilkesboro Speedway in North Carolina was home to top NASCAR races from when it opened in 1949 through when it closed in 1996. It reopened briefly in 2010 but was shuttered again in 2011. Since then, it has been lying dormant as investors and businesses sort out the fate of the historic racetrack.

Photographer Seph Lawless recently paid the track a visit, capturing what the location currently looks like years after it was bustling with racing fans and speeding cars.

Forgotten Countryside Homes

What leads a family’s decision as they decide to stand up, open their door and walk out, leaving everything behind? Forgotten homes sit scattered across our country like eerie time capsules filled with stories, rotting away under the unforgiving power of nature.

Winter Wonderland: Photos of an Abandoned Indoor Mall Filled with Snow

Last year, photographer Seph Lawless published a project called "Black Friday" showing abandoned malls across the US -- widely-published photos that documented the victims of the recession and the online shopping revolution.

Lawless recently revisited one of the malls and found that it had become filled with snow. The broken roofs and skylights had turned the indoor mall into a winter wonderland.

The Disorienting Beauty of Spiral Staircases in Old Abandoned Buildings

Christian Richter is a fine art architecture photographer based in the small town of Jeßnitz, Germany. A fan of exploring old, abandoned buildings, Richter has often come across tall spiral staircases that look both beautiful and disorienting when viewed from the very top looking down. These staircases form a photo series of his that is aptly titled, "Abandoned Staircases."

By the Silent Line: Beautiful Photos of a Parisian Railway Being Reclaimed by Nature

Photographer Pierre Folk has spent 3 years documenting the same, 20-mile long stretch of Parisian railway with his 4x5 view camera... but he's not doing it because of the trains. No, in fact, no trains have run on this railway in for 80 years.

The photos are Folk's way of examining the complex relationship between society and environment.

Project Combines Photos of Abandoned Mills with Lewis Hine’s Photos of the Kids Who Worked There

North Carolina-based photographer Tammy Cantrell has been shooting abandoned mills in the Gaston County area for years, but her Not an Exit exhibit/series reveals a part of those mills that no Urbex photo on its own ever will.

By combining her images with Lewis Hine's documentary photographs of child labor, she allows the past to peek out through her photographs and whisper of a harsher time in our history.

Urbex Photographer Comes Across Abandoned Film School Full of Photo History and Gear Galore

Johnny Joo is a name you might recognize. Not too long ago we featured a series of images Joo captured at a ‘train graveyard’ hidden in the forests of North Carolina. This time, we’re back with some more recent urbex work of his that takes us into the ruins of an abandoned film school that was chock full of items that are doubly interesting to us as photographers.

Urbex Photographer Discovers Eerie ‘Train Graveyard’ in North Carolina Forest

One of the draws of Urban Exploration photography, or Urbex, is the chance that you'll discover and photograph something truly strange and unique. A building abandoned for so long that nobody realizes the treasures hidden within. Or, in this case, a 'train graveyard' with over 70 dilapidated subways, trains and busses in the middle of a North Carolina forest.

Stories Like This are Why Urbex Photogs are So Secretive About Where They Shoot

The world of Urbex (short for "Urban Exploration") photography is a secretive one. In general, Urbex photographers keep purposely silent on the specific locations where they've shot, and for the most part, it's not because they want to keep these dilapidated finds entirely to themselves.

The reason why asking an Urbex photographer where a photo was taken is likely to be met with a vague answer or none at all is perfectly illustrated by the story of the Belgian snow cats in the photo above.

Urbex Photographer Threatened with a 15K Euro Fine and Jail Time After Run In With Authorities

The dangers of urban exploration photography are well-known. However, despite this danger, it’s not often we hear of any big names in Urbex photography having major accidents or run-ins with the law. That changed a bit this week when a photographer who goes by the pseudonym The Other Side shared the story of how he was threatened with serious legal consequences for photographing a partially abandoned French factory.

Black Friday: Haunting Documentary Photo Series Captures Abandoned Malls in the US

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.

Take a Look at the Unseen Side of NYC with ‘Exploring Off-Limits New York’

New York City culture site Animal recently teamed up with photographer and urban explorer 2e to document the making of some photographs in his collection “Exploring Off-Limits New York.”

From Brooklyn’s Domino Sugar Factory to The UnderBelly Project, the video and accompanying story takes a look at some of 2e's not-so-legal and potentially dangerous adventures.