My First Urbex Experience

Saturday 19 September 2020, 14:07 by Kim Schröder | 5,100 views | 11 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Urbex is short for urban exploring. This type of photography involves searching for abandoned buildings and locations that are usually not open to the public.

When you are at such an abandoned location, you can feel the memories and see the beauty of natural decay. Plus, it is incredibly exciting and gives you a real buzz!

The most important rule of urbex is that you do not destroy anything, and leave everything as you found it.

Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but pictures...
Before you start, you should find out everything you can about the location, the history and the functions of the building.

If you know all this in advance, you can better imagine what happened there and what the buildings were used for. It will benefit your photos.

Dangers

You obviously risk a fine if you are on private property. The fact that a location has been empty for several years does not mean that it is not guarded. So take the (regional) laws into account and always put safety first.

You can of course also try to find out who the owner is and ask whether you can take photos of their building or location. Although, to be honest, most urbexers also do it for the buzz. With permission, that buzz is naturally a lot less.

Besides this risk, there is another major risk when urbexing. The buildings have often been abandoned and left to decay for some time, so there is a chance that things have become fragile due to damp or fire.

So always pay close attention to where you walk and never go alone! Make sure your phone is fully charged and that people at home know where you are.

Photographing at an urbex location is not always easy. It is often dark, so a tripod is a useful thing to have. This allows you to use longer shutter speeds.

You can of course also use a torch or a small work light, including to make certain subjects stand out. Keep your ISO as low as possible to prevent noise and, if you can, also take a remote shutter release with you.

Factory in Belgium

Today I am taking you to a factory in Belgium that I visited. This factory was built in 1962. A total of 40,000 people worked there, so it was an immense company!

You really cannot imagine the scale of this place, and the photos we took do not come close to the actual size of this company. The factory has been closed since 2014 and the buildings have stood empty.

The copper thieves had already done a thorough job and a huge amount had been destroyed. When searching for information about this company, we soon came across the many reports about cameras and security, but we decided to take a chance anyway.

After some climbing and scrambling, we were over a fence and among the bushes. Wow, and now what?

This was one of our first urbex experiences and, because of the reports about security, we sneaked and crawled through the bushes towards the entrance. Whispering and on tiptoes, we entered the first building of this enormous complex. Wow!!!

Huge machines, old documents, large halls and even larger buildings with countless floors took our breath away.

Still sneaking and crawling, we continued on our way. It was extremely run-down and a great deal had been demolished. Stripped cables, broken lamps and all sorts of other things were lying everywhere.

We stopped at every little sound because, well, security. Our hearts were in our mouths and it was all incredibly exciting.

We saw another couple walking around with a camera. They must be an urbex couple. The young man told us that he had already been here three years ago and had been caught by security then. According to him, it had since been demolished so extensively that nobody drove around here anymore.

We continued on our way feeling slightly more at ease. We were still amazed by everything we saw! Rust, steel, dust, huge machines, it just went on and on!

Kilometres of conveyor belts, immense pipe systems and, not to be forgotten, countless stairwells.

After walking around for several hours, we decided that we had had enough for today and made our way back to the fence among the bushes.

We still had not seen everything on this site, so we will definitely return another time. What impressions today, what beauty. We enjoyed it!!

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About the author

Kim is gek op Urbex fotografie, niet alleen voor de foto's maar ook voor de kick. Naast Urbex maakt ze graag portret en lifestyle foto's.

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11 comments

guest wrote on Saturday 19 September 2020 at 15:03 | reply
Super om je zo enthousiast bezig te zien in de fotowereld. Ga zo door👍
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Tom wrote on Saturday 19 September 2020 at 15:05 | reply
Leuk eerste artikel! Ga zo door!
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Jacques wrote on Saturday 19 September 2020 at 17:26 | reply
Je geeft een mooi beeld van je ervaringen met Urbex foto's. Interessant voor mij als eenvoudige liefhebber.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

guest wrote on Saturday 19 September 2020 at 21:16 | reply
Heel mooi geschreven en super foto's. 😘
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Tijdlooskim wrote on Saturday 19 September 2020 at 21:20 | reply
Dank allen!
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Meurisse Luc wrote on Tuesday 22 September 2020 at 15:27 | reply
Liefhebber van Urbex-foto's? zie prachtige website van https://www.hullabaloo.be
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Fred Hermans wrote on Wednesday 23 September 2020 at 14:30 | reply
Heel mooi verhaal. Ik heb zelf ook veel zin om me in Urbex te gaan verdiepen. Als je de volgende keer gaat en nog een enthousiaste fotograaf zoekt om mee te gaan hou ik me aanbevolen!
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

Maurice Debusschere wrote on Wednesday 23 September 2020 at 16:20 | reply
Bij gelegenheid hou ik ook van urbexfotografie maar ik doe het alleen mits toelating van de eigenaar van de gebouwen of installaties. Uit voorzorg laat ik ook altijd iemand weten waar ik ga fotograferen en wanneer ik vermoedelijk weer buiten zal zijn. Het mag dan misschien minder avontuurlijk lijken maar dat is het (naar mijn gevoel) niet, ook niet minder leuk maar vooral veel veiliger.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

jos schiffelers wrote on Saturday 3 October 2020 at 12:52 | reply
Mooi artikel Kim.
Dat maakt mij ook nieuwsgierig naar de urbex locaties.
Jos
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

johandeman wrote on Tuesday 27 October 2020 at 16:10 | reply
Als dit HFB is, de bewaking is er echt nihil. Zelfs metaaldieven rijden er met n bestelwagen op het terrein ! Als het Heavy Metal is, daar heb ik ook al verhalen van gehoord, dat je 'gegarandeerd' gepakt wordt door de security … Je moet ook niet alles geloven, vaak wordt dit verzonnen door andere urbexers. Heavy Metal zijn we 2x geweest, telkens +- 6 uur. We hebben er security zien rondrijden en binnen zien komen in het gebouw waar we zaten, maar we hebben ons n uur lang verstopt en zijn dan vertrokken, niet betrapt dus
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

johandeman wrote on Tuesday 27 October 2020 at 16:13 | reply
Het grootste gevaar is niet de security maar de toestand van het gebouw zelf : je kan ergens in vallen, in spijkers trappen, je handen snijden, ergens in kruipen waar je niet meer weg kan, je hoofd stoten, je komt krakers/junks/metaaldieven tegen … Verder bestaat het risico dat je asbest of koolstof of andere substanties inademt. Of dat iemand je camera wil stelen.
This comment was written in another language and has not been translated yet.

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