Following the abandoned links

Knowing of my fascination for abandoned places, the other day I was encouraged to follow a link from ABC Western Victoria's Facebook site, 
 

plus love their cover photo

to an article from the Daily Mail's online edition titled "Family life frozen in time" showcasing Dutch photographer Niki Feijen's book "Disciple of decay" a series featuring decaying family homes where the furniture, ornaments and clothes are still in place amidst the peeling plaster and rotting chairs.
This in turn led me to his Facebook site, and finally to his website.

Niki on the beautiful staircase in the Chateau de Loup

Born in the Netherlands Niki Feijen discovered Urbex - Urban Exploring - photography. The examination of the normally unseen or off limits parts of urban areas or industrial facilities.

As he says basically visiting and photographing abandoned buildings, tunnels, industry, castles, etc. He also admits to a crazy stairs addiction, spending hours beneath a staircase to capture one awesome shot.

In November 2010 Niki and his girlfriend decided to live the urban explorers dream and journey into the Chernobyl exclusion zone (obviously he hadn't seen the 'Chernobyl diaries' film). He found it "like a movie set, a ghost town. The emptiness is overwhelming. Unsuitable for living due to the radioactive contamination it's a nightmare for its former inhabitants, a dream for urban explorers."

Here are just some of his photos shared from his site. One thing I appreciated was that at his site he had a variety of share options - embeddable links, social bookmarking, feeds, etc., made adding these photos so much easier.

Pripyay classroom, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

'Disco inferno' - a burned-out disco

A grand staircase in an abandoned castle

'Shattered fairytales' - the ruined Chateau de Noisy