For a long time, I’ve wanted to do some urban exploring, I like the idea of a life without humans/aftermath of what humans have done. There is some stunning photography out there in the world of buildings covered in nature after been abandoned for years. I've never actually been to a place like this (before now)- mainly because none of my friends have had much of interest of walking around random locations. I have become good friends with people that are quite happy to walk in a random direction to see where it goes even if it takes hours, they are the sort of people to make homemade bows from a tree and camp out just to do midnight free climbing in the moon. They are a large inspiration as to why I have come out of my shell a lot more over the last year, I’m not quite there yet but small things have improved. I mean hey! I’m not half as scared of heights as I use to be.

So when I bought about urban photography up to Tom he couldn’t wait to tell me about this spot in Dragonby - I mean the name was good enough to give it a go. It’s a long warehouse that was abandoned years ago next to an old mine that him and some others have explored around the area before and apparently it was enough to send them running (in the dark). I have to say I didn’t get that feel when I went but I did go midday and it was glorious weather but it was an in the moment trip and I still really enjoyed myself. The graffiti was amazing, some really talented artists had swung by in the past and decorated the walls. I loved the feel here although it was midday you still felt away from the world and secluded away from real life. The warehouse has 2 large rooms and one smaller one in-between these two, sadly there isn’t anything inside the compound. Nothing left behind bar the odd bit of rubbish. I would love to go to a truly abandoned places that look like humanity literally just disappeared mid meal or shift. I love the supernatural and spend a lot of my time on creepy pasta or conspiracy theory websites who talk about cover ups for other worldly things. To be able to capture the unease of how the world would go on without it… pure skill.

A lot of my shots wasn’t very good quality as I currently don’t own a tripod to steady the camera is when I need to use a slightly longer shutter speed to capture the light, at times I don’t like a lot of my images too they don’t capture the true feel of the place but I’m still learning. As I’ve never tried this sort of photography I didn’t even know where to start when taking the photos never mind attempting to edit them. I attempted to use some of the common low shots and doorway images that I have seen a lot of urban photographers use.

I did love this trek though, we got lost driving up missing the turning by milliseconds because the sign post was at the opening with no warning. Getting worried about hopping over a tiny fence and having the locals stare at us amazed by the strange people new to the village. I truly tried to take some unique photos in my own style with inspirations from popular photographers on Instagram and Flickr… I think I’ll always be torn wither I like them or not.


Each time I write about my photos I’m going to want to start with ‘I’m not sure if I like this photo’ so my aim is to avoid that phase! I took this at a lower angle as I wanted to portray how looming and huge the warehouse felt, walking up to it in the middle of the day I still got the uneasy feeling not to go inside and I tried to relay that back to you guys. In Photoshop I darkened the image a small amount and put the contrast up a tiny bit, these images from Dragonby have to be the most edited photos of my life – mainly just making them darker!

I absolutely feel in love with the back wall of the first room of the warehouse, I just love the graffiti. I don’t know much on this matter but I count graffiti just as much art work as any painting. I must of took 50+ photos from all different angles onto the back wall, some from really far way and some closer up. I only felt like this was a strong enough image to be posted through. Like I said without a tripod a lot of my images (once on my computer) had a small amount of blur to them.
These images are of the middle room (between the two big ones) it may have been small but it had more character to it due to having little hide always and smaller doorways to walk through. The images to me seem boring but at the same time I can’t bring myself to delete them because there is something very satisfying about the images – for myself anyway. A little straightening in Photoshop is all these two needed.

This image is in no way creative or original but I wanted to share with everyone this piece of art work located in the middle room (show above) I fell in love straight away. It’s simple but still interesting and I love the quote! ‘Silent people have the loudest minds’ Almost reminds me of Banksy.
Outside of the warehouse. These are simple outside shots but I tried to play about with the composition so bring more worry into the images and I think they turned out well. This whole experience was a step out my comfort zone but I loved doing it! Most defiantly up for another day exploring!

I guess practise makes perfect!
I hope I did the style justice as I truly did try to give it some depth.

many thanks
kerriss brown xo