One of the genres I really wanted to try at least once in photography, even if it might be considered a cliche was to do an urbex shoot involving a model. Urbex, for those of you who don’t know is the urban exploration of abandoned ruins and man-made structures.
If you look, you’ll find a couple of websites dedicated to seeking and documenting these kind of places. It’s exciting and something I wanted to try, but despite the existence of these sites I didn’t really have the courage to explore, let alone take someone along with me to photograph. So I waited.
Over time I became familiar with the work of a model called Marmalade. Whilst adept at all styles of work, urbex had very much become her trademark and I was continually blown away by the images she regularly posted.
Eventually I was notified that she was planning a trip to the South West and would be shooting with several local photographers. We chatted and before I knew it, we’d arranged to visit an abandoned factory nearby. Marmalade had shot there before and knew the way in and exactly what to look out for and avoid.
I have to admit, I was a bit nervous on arrival. It’s not often you sneak (I say sneak, we actually just strolled straight in!) into an abandoned building and we drew a few looks from a couple of residents on a nearby street who surely knew exactly where we were headed. Once we were inside however, all my worries departed – it was such an amazing location. I could have spent days there, even without a model. We shot for around 2 hours and below is a selection of my images. My camera struggles greatly in low light, but I think we got some good ones!
If this is a style of photography you’re interested in, I highly recommend shooting with Marmalade. You’ll find more of her adventures on her own blog.
