Christian Saris
Centrale Électrique
19. März 2014 - gesus - Lesezeit: 2 - 3 min.
english fotografie urban exploration
This location was a little bit weird. It was the 3rd destination on our Luxembourg-Trip. After we visited le Petit Café and Poussière Rouge this power plant was the next on our list.
Click here to view all pictures of this location or continue reading for a small report.
Usually when we enter an industrial brownfield area we are on our own. Everything is abandoned and quiet. From time to time you meet another photographer. But at this location everything was different.
10 or 20 photographers plus a lot of teenagers were in that area and in that building. A few played soccer in the basement of the former power plant.
Well I am quite sure that I don’t want my children to play in a place like this. All the broken glass and the unstable ground plates are not a safe place, indeed.
Although there were no machines in there and almost everything was demolished and covered with graffiti, the location was very special and impressive.
Poussière Rouge
17. März 2014 - gesus - Lesezeit: 2 - 3 min.
english fotografie urban exploration
The Luxemburg-trip was very successful. After le petit Café we started over to an abandoned iron ore production site. One of the remaining buildings of that site was some kind of huge silo hall.
The silo was divided into two parts: one was crossed by red dust of the iron ore (see above) and the other part was maybe colored by the lime which was mixed to the ore (see below).
Down in the basement there was a water pit and some kind of outflow device for the ore. I have completely no idea, how exactly the ore was produced here but the decaying remains of this structure were a very impressive experience. We were very lucky because the weather was fine and so we got the first sunny days of the year… and the sun gave us a very special light condition there.
Click here to take a look at the whole photo set on flickr.
Le petit Café
12. März 2014 - gesus - Lesezeit: 3 min.
english fotografie urban exploration
Last weekend we did a short trip to Luxemburg and Belgium. The first location of that two-day photo trip was a little old Café in Luxemburg. It was abandoned a couple of decades ago and not only had a small banquet hall but also a nine-pin bowling alley and some old moldy guest rooms in the first floor.
Above you can see the old piano, which was situated in the banquet hall and an old commode standing in the floor below. The strings of the piano were rusty and all keys were gone with the humidity of the room. That’s some kind of pain to see an instrument like this in that constitution.
One of the guest rooms in the first floor:
And as a highlight: the attic with some relicts of a agriculture background of this building – shoulder collars.
Above there you could see, that a lot of photographers have been there, because they draped the items in that room to a plenty of Still Lifes. I usually don’t like manipulating the scenery I see there, but I think the Still Life below was the most unconventional.
Follow this link to see the whole photo set.
Tiger and Turtle
14. Februar 2014 - gesus - Lesezeit: 3 - 4 min.
architektur english fotografie reisen
“Tiger and Turtle – Magic Mountain” is the title of a huge walkable sculpture in Duisburg, Germany. It was designed by Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth and was constructed in the course of the project Ruhr.2010 – European Capital Of Culture.
In this region of Germany – the Ruhrgebiet – and especially in Duisburg many mining and steel production sites are situated. In the 1990s the number of those production sites decreased drastically and people had to be creative in managing the structural change from an industrially dominated region to a tertiary dominated.
So you can find a lot of projects like Tiger and Turtle in the Ruhrgebiet, which try to reuse industrial brownfield areas and are developed as a reminiscence of the historical usage.
The history of those industrial days is perceived as a cultural asset which has to be honored.
The sculpture was constructed on a former clinker dump of a Zinc Smelting plant and is a landmark which is formed like a big roller coaster. If you travel to this well worth seeing point of interest, you are able to enter the sculpture and walk around on it.
All in all it is about 20 meters high and it refers to the historical location because it was constructed with galvanized steel. When you arrive after sunset, you will see, that the landmark is illuminated and creates an outstanding atmosphere.
If you plan a visit, take Line 903 to Hüttenheim and exit at “Tiger and Turtle Magic Mountain”.
My photos on Deutsche Welle
6. Februar 2014 - gesus - Lesezeit: 1 min.
english fotografie gedanken urban exploration
A few of my photos have been published on “Deutsche Welle Farsi”. You can take a look following this link.
Destroying Buildings
28. Januar 2014 - gesus - Lesezeit: 3 min.
architektur english fotografie gedanken urban exploration
Buildings are constructed by humans and intended to last for a very long time. If you think about a force that may destroy buildings around you, you may think about explosives or devastating weapons.
When you walk through a decaying piece of industrial brownfield, you get to know a different type of destructive force: mother nature.
When a building is constructed, nature loses some area wich is now occupied by human beings. When those buildings are abandoned and left-behind, nature slowly takes back the area step by step.
First you can see a few colonies of moss on the masonry or on the roof tiles. Ferns follow and after a few years, other plants like grass of even trees are growing all over.
While grass, plants and moss break down the masonry very tardily, the roots of a tree (i.e. birches) can disintegrate a wall within a few years.
Once I saw a building with a few trees on the rooftop. When I entered the building on the ground floor, I saw that the roots of the birches thrilled down from the roof to the joints of the masonry in the ground story.
So as time passes by, those mosses, ferns, plants, trees and other vegetation are able to dismantle huge buildings and raze them to the ground.
By the way, sometimes people help nature destroying those buildings like in this bakery:
A police squad did an exercise with explosives in this building. Fortunately we weren’t in there when they did that ;-)
Coking Plant
14. Januar 2014 - gesus - Lesezeit: 3 min.
architektur english fotografie urban exploration
Some months ago I visited a former coking plant. These of the pictures try to show the the incredible atmosphere
This coking plant and the surrounding area looked like a cathedral which was bombed in World War III. Those two huge chimneys of the former coking plant have been blown down to secure this brownfield area but they were expected to fall down to the grassland and not into the building. On the picture above you can see the damage of the building due to that fallen chimney.
This is the blasted chimney.
Walking on this area felt like walking within a ware zone. Everything looks like bombs have fallen down and huge relicts of the former industry buildings are getting overgrown by vegetation.
Going up to the control tower was a very special feeling with a beatiful view of that building and the swath of destruction which was reclaimed by birches, bushes and buzzards.
The entire factory was disassembled in Germany and rebuilt in China in the 2000s.
You can see the entire photo collection on the flickr-set.
Military Museum
8. Januar 2014 - gesus - Lesezeit: 3 min.
english fotografie technologie urban exploration
Last November we visited an abandoned museum. It was about military technology and a lot of exhibits were just standing on an acre or a yard like the soviet-designed medium twin-turbine Transport helicopter Ми-8 (Mil Mi-8, see above).
Lots of tanks (mainly German Bundeswehr or Former Warsaw Pact army), police trucks, a few combat aircrafts, military helicopters as well as civilian helicopters are just standing there under the open sky and are fully exposed to wind and weather. The pictures show, what all the corrosion made to those former high tech military products.
When you approach to the location, you can see the MiG-21 (МиГ-21, called “Fishbed”) from far away.
In the front garden of the neighbor’s house you can see an old police-vehicle with a water cannon on it. Wasserwerfer 64 was designed by the police of West Berlin in 1964. “Bitte Abstand halten” means “Please keep your distance”.
The BTR-60 (below) was an armored soviet personnel carrier. The vehicle was used by the NVA (East-Germany).
A second exemplar of a Mig 21 was standing in the yard. The soviet supersonic jet fighter once was owned by the NVA and became a Bundeswehr machine after the German reunification.
On the image below you can see the soviet 2S3 Akatsiya self-propelled artillery vehicle.
The image below shows a German Kanonenjagdpanzer 4-5.
You can see all pictures on the flickr set. Thanks to Patrick for all the technical infos.
Old Bathhouse
5. Januar 2014 - gesus - Lesezeit: 2 min.
architektur english fotografie urban exploration
This old bathhouse was built in 1929. It consisted of two pools originally intended to have separate pools for men and women. After years passed by, one pool was covered with hardwood floor and it was used as a gymnasium for the school next to the building. The floor at some point was demolished as there were multiple fire incidents probably due to some vandals.
Even today you can smell a touch of chlorine when you enter the building. Because of the fires, this smell changes if you are in the ‘dark pool’ room (below). The basketball board is a relict of those times, the room was used as a gymnasium.
United States 2013
2. Januar 2014 - gesus - Lesezeit: 10 - 13 min.
architektur english fotografie natur reisen usa
In 2013 my wife and me travelled to the United States of America for the very first time. It really was a dream for me. As a student I came to the decision that I have to see this country in the near future.
Unfortunately it lasted a lot of years unless we finally did the trip. And we both are sure, that this won’t be the last time we went there.
In Los Angeles we met our wonderful family and rented an RV to start our tour to San Francisco, which was 2.400 miles long and took us to the following destinations:
- Joshua Tree National Park, California
- Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
- Navajo Bridge, Arizona
- Lake Powell, Arizona
- Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah
- Zion Nation Park, Utah
- Las Vegas, Nevada
- Lake June, California
- Yosemite National Park, California
- San Francisco, California
View our adjusted route on Google Maps.
1. Joshua Tree National Park, California
Most of the people we talked to couldn’t understand why we wanted to visit this National Park. They said: “Okay, it’s the desert. So what?” As a middle European guy I never saw a real desert, so it was new to me and it was a very good experience I will never forget.
I never thought, that hiking in the desert at above 100º F (38º C) is fun. Before the trip I was convinced that this is only exhausting and hard.
2. Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
Everybody knows about the Grand Canyon. Some say it is the most popular tourist attraction of the United States. For sure you can read anything about it and see almost every picture of it, but when you are really standing in front of this gigantic hole in the ground for the first time you will be paralyzed.
Here we learned to love US National Parks. Although there were thousands of tourists, it didn’t feel very crowded. The park rangers and the park infrastructure were very well and so you can go on several hikes, explore the park with your car, with the free bus shuttles or you can join the park ranger program.
Check out route on Google maps.
3. Navajo bridge, Arizona
A bridge above the Colorado River… a gigantic view which will let you know how difficult it might be to build a bridge connecting both rims.
4. Lake Powell, Arizona
It is a little bit bizarre, when you leave the desert and drive to this lake. Almost everybody wants to do water-sports there and the lake is surrounded by the aridity of the desert. Nevertheless it was quite refreshing to stay a couple of days there.
Check out route on Google Maps.
5. Antelope Canyon, Arizona
Who hasn’t heard about this Canyon? When we started our journey I thought, that Antelope Canyon will be one of the main attractions on the route. As we were there, we made the experience that indeed it is an especially beautiful cave/ canyon but it was very crowded, too crowded. A photo tour through that Canyon was too short and very stressful. But nevertheless it was really amazing.
6. Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah
I have never seen comparable landscape shapes. You walk or drive through this national Park and think that you are on another planet. A hike to the ground of the Canyon is highly recommended.
View the route on Google Maps.
7. Zion National Park, Utah
Zion National Park has some impressive rock formations and a lot of hiking trails. If you want to drive through the Mount Carmel Highway Tunnel with an RV you have to drive very carefully. Stay on the middle of the road, otherwise the roof of your RV will crash against the inner surface of the tunnel! I will never forget this tour (Fortunately it was very easy to drive there and nothing happened to the RV’s roof :-) ).
Check out our route on Google Maps.
8. Las Vegas, Nevada
Nothing to say about Las Vegas, everybody knows it. There is no place in the world which feels more artificial. After a night or so, you lose the feeling of time and you flow with the most people there… just gambling. You have to love it or hate it… I love it ;)
Check out route on Google Maps.
9. Lake June, California
This place on the east boundary of Yosemite National Park reminded me of the alps. Beautiful lake June was too cold to go swimming there, but it is located in a terrific scenery with snow-capped mountains all around.
10. Yosemite Nation Park, California
(flickr set)
Another Planet. The first thoughts I had on the first miles of the Tioga Pass: The landscape looks like a picture book. Everything is so beautiful and looks perfect. We spent almost a week there and I still have the feeling that this was much too short.
Check out our route on Google Maps.
Yosemite National Park was the last destination of our RV-tour. After that we had to drop off our motorhome in San Francisco. We traveled 2.400 miles within 22 days, burned 190 gallons of gas, visited four US states and six national parks. Going that tour by RV was really great, I think it was the best way to do the trip.
Check out our route on Google Maps.
11. San Francisco, California
After all those lonesome places (except Vegas) we visited San Francisco. What a city! We have to come back there. I never thought that walking on the Golden Gate Bridge was so affecting. I couldn’t believe it, but it was so moving. This is only one fact why San Francisco is so cool; the people, architecture, the climate… everything was perfect. I think San Francisco has become my favorite city of the world.
Unfortunately San Francisco was the last destination on that journey. There are a lot of things to see in this country, and we will come back. That’s a promise.