Abandoned Luxury: I Traveled Around Europe Photographing Abandoned Places

When you feel that smell you realize that you have arrived. Must be the wood, always the wood, that from the dangerous ceilings to the disjointed floors, is soaked by the rain, at this point master of all the spaces.

And the darkness always overwhelms you, that damn darkness, which does not allow you to catch any panorama or view. Close your eyes and re-experience celebrations and dance, mass and priests, doctors and ill people or more simply men and women. Must be the silence, always the same, which relieves the step and forces the breath. Threatening, absolute and worrisome, it makes you jump when nature or animals are scratching.

The feelings give birth to the passions: Before the abandoned places touched me, then, pushed to stare at them as an image, to avoid the memories dissolving through the time. The Urbex, Urban Exploration, excited me, their rules are summarized completely in it’s motto “ take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints”. That is how it starts “Abandoned H. Ell”, a project that narrates through the photography abandoned places.

I travelled all through Italy seeking for places filled with stories and lived life, left in forgotten and to the power of dust: From houses, still furnished with richly painted large rooms to ex-psychiatric hospitals, from churches to border schools and monasteries. A photographic project that I hope spreads, through my pictures, stunning emotions, astonishment and uneasiness to whom looks at them and to preserve these marvels. This is the only way to breathe new life into these places.

More info: eleonoracosti.com | Facebook

Abandoned Luxury: I Traveled Around Europe Photographing Abandoned Places

What do you think ?

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Erin Nadeau 8 years ago

These are amazing. Such opulence and grandeur, just left behind. Are these stitched panoramas to capture the breadth of the space? It would be interesting to see the stories of each of these buildings' closures. When I think about all of the people who have no homes, and these magnificent buildings sit empty and abandoned, it makes you wonder about what our priorities truly are in life.

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