Moundsville West Virginia Penitentiary

This building is not really that abandoned, they host numerous events in there every year. But it doesn`t matter, practically it was abandoned in 1995, and to keep it`s charm we`ll imagine that nobody visited it since, except photographers.

Wikipedia: The West Virginia State Penitentiary is a retired, Gothic style prison located in Moundsville, West Virginia. It operated from 1876 to 1995. Currently, the site is maintained as a tourist attraction and training facility.
And now, my specialty, showing you the photos!

Bokor Mountain Abandoned Resort, Cambodia

Today is the first time I hear about this place, and I don`t know how did I not find out about it sooner. I don`t know much about this place, given the previous stated fact, so I`m going to copy what I found on wikipedia.

"Bokor Hill Station (in Khmer Kosthany Phnom Bokor) is an abandoned French town in Preah Monivong National Park. Construction started in 1921 on Dâmrei Mountains, about 20 km as the crow flies (42 km by the road) West from the town of Kampot, southern Cambodia. It was used as the location for the final showdown of the movie City of Ghosts (2002) and the 2004 film R-Point." More here: Wikipedia

So I see that it`s pretty famous, now we find out why.

Haunted

Halloween has passed and I didn`t make a post about it. Neither is this one. I know people have a sort of orgasm when they see creepy places (usually old houses with a story) and they hear some rumors that they are haunted. Now I personally don`t believe in the paranormal field, so I don`t believe in haunted places. But that doesn`t stop me from appreciating the spookiness of those places, the horror stories that they hide, and the natural decay that the abandonment has cursed them with. So here are some Spooky places I found just for you (real and graphic).

Hashima Island, Japan`s Abandoned City

Did you think that only europeans and americans (as presented in previous posts) have nice abandoned areas? If so, you are so wrong. Asia also holds a nice abandoned area, with more than 3 decades of decay. I do not know much about this city, but I know it had 5,259 inhabitants, it was made for coal mining workers in the 1930`s by the Mitsubishi Company, it was once the most crowded city in the world, and then it got abandoned in 1974. Now the only life it has are small animals and some visitors. I personally like this city because it`s not only abandoned, it`s surrounded by water too, which makes it kind of like a fortress. The fact that it is an abandoned city on an abandoned island, makes it even creepier than Prypiat (try disagreeing with that please), the perfect ghost town, but the fact that it`s located all the way in Asia, makes it almost impossible for me to ever visit it.  
For more info about the city visit The story of Hashima island.

Detroit City Downfall

The first post about Detroit City was intended to be made out of a mix of photographs made by many people, instead I got so fascinated by the 2 artists, Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre, that I filled the whole post with their work. I said there, in the previous post, all that I should say about this matter, except that one day, when I finally get there, I hope these places are still up, awaiting me to immortalize them, as so many others did before me ..

Detroit`s Urban Contrasts

A lot of thing have been said and are being said about Detroit, and I`m not the best person to say more, because I would risk saying things that are not true. 
One thing is true though, Detroit is the city of contrast, capturing the skyscraper business section in whole with the abandoned areas, the old with the new, the gray with the green, creating, at least for some, a beautiful kind of .. poetry. 
What happened to the city you ask? Something with the industrial environment which collapsed for some reason and some mayor who doesn`t know very much about running a big city, so people started to part. It`s still a big city, holding 800k people, and rising, because I understood that some are coming to this controversial city, looking for things that other big cities just can`t provide, from various reasons.  
So from my personal point of view, I see Detroit City as a living Prypiat, as half of the city looks like an american versions of Prypiat, the other looks like the metropolitan area it wants to be.

I`ll give it a start with Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre, along with a quote from their website: "Ruins are the visible symbols and landmarks of our societies and their changes ... the volatile result of the change of eras and the fall of empires. This fragility leads us to watch them one very last time: to be dismayed, or to admire, it makes us wonder about the permanence of things."

And because I mentioned them, I will start off with some of their work:

No Humans - Graphic Photography

The same story, imagining the supreme urban decay, where no humans can protect and interfere with the, now, vulnerable system. It`s all in the hands of the wild, as some imagined (visit Videos page)

Abandonment in games #1 - S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

The game industry has it`s junkies, people that love what we love, and with the ability to implement the creepiest places in creepy games. This is the first post of the series, featuring S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

Chernobyl