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Cape Cod 2024
For several years I had been trying to get a shot of Long Point Lighthouse at sunset. We tended to take the boat out too early in the day to be in the right place at the right time, though.…
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary
There are so many shows and accounts of the history of Alcatraz, it feels silly to try to provide yet another one here so I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Despite having been to San Francisco…
Buffalo State Hospital July 2013
We made a second trip to Buffalo State to do another tour just a couple of months after our first visit to Buffalo State Hospital.
Buffalo State Hospital May 2013
Construction on the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane began in 1872 with the hospital opening in 1880. The architect, Henry Hobson Richardson, designed many well known buildings including Trinity Church in Boston and the Thomas Crane Memorial Library on…
Adler Hotel
The Adler Hotel was the first stop on an epic east coast road trip we took in August 2009. Three of us, loaded up in my 2003 Jeep Grand Cherokee and set off for New York. Not everyone who explores…
McGraw Station – 6th Precinct
During my first trip to Detroit one of our first stops was the abandoned 6th precinct police station, otherwise known as McGraw Station. Built in 1930, the station was active until budget cuts lead to its closure in 2005. McGraw…
About Desolate Metropolis
Photography, for me, started in Middle School. My friend signed up for photography class and brought me in to the dark room to check out the prints he was developing from his pinhole camera. I was instantly hooked. The smell of the fix, the image slowly coming out in the developer, it was magic. I started out with a homemade pinhole camera and moved up to black and white 35mm film. I took photography numerous times throughout high school but, despite going to one of the best photography colleges in the country, I didn’t photograph for the next 9 years.
In 2005, the Canon 20D came out. It seemed to me to be the first DSLR that you could get decent sized prints out of, finally solving my problem of not having a dark room. I bought one and muddled around with it throughout the year but lacked the inspiration I needed to start shooting seriously again. That all changed when I saw some photos online from people who would explore and photograph abandoned buildings. The excitement was electric and I knew immediately that I had to do this.
I had no idea the journey that this decision would set me on.