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I drove 3 hours to an abandoned asylum and missed the whole point until I saw the ceiling
I've been hitting up abandoned places for about 2 years now, mostly focusing on big stuff like old factories and hospitals. Last month I finally got into that abandoned asylum near Hudson Valley that everyone talks about. I was so busy trying to get wide shots of the main hall and patient rooms that I almost walked right past this tiny section of peeling paint on a ceiling that told the whole story of the place. A guy I ran into there pointed out a hand-painted mural from the 1920s that workers did during construction, and it hit me that I've been treating these places like empty shells instead of looking for the small human details. Has anyone else realized they were just snapping the same dramatic photos over and over?
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grant_palmer20d ago
Did you go back to look at that mural more closely after the guy pointed it out, or was it too late and you already packed up your gear?
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tylerw7221d ago
Yeah man, I mean "treating these places like empty shells" is pretty much what I did for my first year of urbex too. It's funny you mention the paint on the ceiling though, because that specific thing might not actually be from the 1920s. A lot of asylums were built in stages and had renovations into the 30s and 40s, so that mural could be later than you think. I only know that because I got obsessed with verifying dates after I realized I was posting inaccurate captions on my photos. But your main point is totally valid, there's so much more to these places than just the dramatic decay shots everyone does.
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