I threw together this article mainly for Korea but there's probably enough to apply to other countries as well. It was my attempt to say "There's too many of you, but if you're going to be here, might as well learn how to do it right."

http://www.asiapun...exploration-korea/

Well, I can say it looks good and I like it, plus almost all of those can be applied to us all!

Wow, great article! I like how simply it's formatted and I can see this as being helpful to newbies (and as BrandonFireKing said most if not all of these apply to the U.S. as well). Hopefully it'll set em' straight with regards to breakin' shit and stealing.

I loved this write up. Thank you for taking so much time and care with your words. You brought up so many great key issues, plus, reading things like this made me giggle:
"If you get bored sitting through camera gear discussions, just wait until you have to listen to a discussion of what’s the best flashlight." .........ummmmm, I have NO idea what you're talking about with that one.........right. bahahaha ;)

I would love to share your article with some of my networks. I feel like it absolutely applies to almost anywhere you might find yourself exploring.......Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately in some cases (?), the striped blankets over buildings mean something completely different where I live: Pest fumigation, or the circus. Though I guess you could say that entering something covered with a striped blanket could still make things disappear, like bugs, or people (?!?!) ;)

Thanks again. I will definitely be giving this a read again when I am a bit less tired.

By all means feel free to share it and maybe comment on that when you do so. The blankets aren't quite like a canopy covering the whole buildings, but just a really cheap temporary fencing solution to separate people from abandonments.

Steed, you have all my respect. Props for this great article that sums up the ethics of urban exploration pretty well. I'm soooo going to share your article all around me!

Once again, excellent work!

Fantastic write-up! Great information for newbs and experienced explorers alike.

That was fun!

Good Job

Excellent read. Thanks for sharing.

Good stuff.

The only thing I have a difficult time with is the "taint shot" DON'T. This necessitates a competition to be the first to shoot the good angles. Many sites have places that are obviously a great angle to shoot from and will quickly be recognized by experienced photographers. I have no problem with this whatsoever. Follow me around and take my angles, no problem. Just don't get pissed when I do it to you. I most likely would have ended up finding that angle anyway...

Part of this comes from exploring with the same people for years and years. We setup next to each other all the time, as the angle and position is so obvious, why take turns? We also show each other our shots continuously to inspire each other and give each other ideas. At the end of the night this often results in better photographs all around as we solve each others small mistakes. Also we collaborate on lighting scenes at night and it's hard to do this if cameras are all over the place. The cameras need to be in the same general area or I will be walking through your shot with my light on, ruining it.

I guess I don't really want to see this rule get propagated. Cooperation, not competition when you are out together. Maybe it's just that I'm from California...

-free

Posted by freeside Good stuff. The only thing I have a difficult time with is the "taint shot" DON'T. This necessitates a competition to be the first to shoot the good angles. Many sites have places that are obviously a great angle to shoot from and will quickly be recognized by experienced photographers. I have no problem with this whatsoever. Follow me around and take my angles, no problem. Just don't get pissed when I do it to you. I most likely would have ended up finding that angle anyway... Part of this comes from exploring with the same people for years and years. We setup next to each other all the time, as the angle and position is so obvious, why take turns? We also show each other our shots continuously to inspire each other and give each other ideas. At the end of the night this often results in better photographs all around as we solve each others small mistakes. Also we collaborate on lighting scenes at night and it's hard to do this if cameras are all over the place. The cameras need to be in the same general area or I will be walking through your shot with my light on, ruining it. I guess I don't really want to see this rule get propagated. Cooperation, not competition when you are out together. Maybe it's just that I'm from California... -free

Good comments. I was hoping someone would raise an issue with something I wrote. Anyway, let's call this a matter of etiquette rather than a hard "DON'T."

I have seen someone take a good shot, and gone to the same place and gotten the same picture, and I've had it happen to me. Hell, I've taken taint shots of my own pictures on repeated visits. Not a huge deal, but it is on some level lazy. That's why we should be always finding new locations: to be shooting new things and not just taking taint shots.

"Also, you should take extra care never to let kids see you entering any place where they might get the idea to go in themselves, because kids are good at dying."

I laughed way too hard.

But I read the whole guide and agree with pretty much all of what you posted. Well done.

Posted by Mister Owl "Also, you should take extra care never to let kids see you entering any place where they might get the idea to go in themselves, because kids are good at dying." I laughed way too hard. But I read the whole guide and agree with pretty much all of what you posted. Well done.

That quote originally continued "...and not much else" but one of my proofreaders thought I was coming on a bit too strong.

Hey, its completely true tho. The more coverage exploring gets the better the chance some kid is gonna take a selfie and fall down an elevator shaft.

This was outstanding. Great formatting, very well put, interesting and helpful. Thank you.

With regard to the discussion of 'taint' shots above, I guess I'd like to chip in from the perspective of a couple of other creative disciplines... On the one hand, I get the point about taking the exact same pictures that you've seen online/that your companions are taking being kind of cheap and boring. That trying to rise to the challenge of of a fresh take is... kind of at the root of striving for anything creative.

Now, maybe photography isn't like this. I'm a rubbish photographer. I mean, really truly shit awful. I'd like to get better, but it's also not high on my list of priorities right now and I know it's not going to happen until I have extra time and energy that I can devote to both doing and researching it. So all of the pictures I post here (and really... MOST of the pictures that I take of anything) are to enhance my own mental archive of experiences, sometimes to use as material so I have lots and lots of references for drawing blitzed-out post-apocalyptic landscapes in this comic that sometimes exists, and to share with no more formality than 'here are some things that I saw with my eyeballs that looked somewhat better through my eyeballs at the time!' But with other things that I do and make and try to be better at, practice is really good (I'm a writer, an illustrator, and a singer). Practice including copying other people. It helps you notice and understand the details of things, and figure out how to include techniques and styles and to some extent even themes in your own work, and also get at the meat of things you don't want to do.

I guess the main thing, to me, comes down to intention. If you're out there with the intention of doing serious work and creating art, yeah, you don't want 2 or 3 people creating... a bunch of the same art. Especially not if everyone is planning on trying to pass it off as their own, unadulterated originals. But if someone is just going through taking different shots as a matter of practice or their own personal enjoyment of a scene, I don't see why there's anything wrong with that.

Nobody likes it when people try to pass things off as their own genius when they're not. Some people are versed enough in their field to be able to call those things out from a mile away, but a lot of people aren't, and they will end up naively fawning over a steaming pile of some guy's half-baked shit cause it got to have better marketing. God knows, I watch this happen in publishing all the goddamn time and it makes me want to pull out my own teeth. I'll refrain from naming any authors ;). Maybe. >.>

Anyway the tl;dr of this is basically that I think repetition/replication is a highly underrated tool of creative development in this day and age, and that we fetishize this weird 'pure' talent/inspiration that springs from nothing as sacrosanct. And that's shit, cause you don't get good at much if you don't work at it.

The end.

_{edit to add: neurotic clarification. I don't have any issue with either of the POVs expressed above, just thought the discussion was interesting.}

Oh yeah, repetition is fine. I've been inspired by other people's work on here and it's helped me to go out to my own local places and try to replicate what they do. Also, I've found interesting things before while with other explorers, and we've all photographed the same thing using different styles and walked away with completely different images.

Anyway, this is probably more of a concern in Korea because there are very few people photographing these things.

...and thaaat was a late night ramble and a half >.<

I could see that, re: Korea and concentration of photographs/photographers. That being said, I've really liked a lot of the stuff I've seen posted here from Korea. And I've got a fair number of friends (Korean and otherwise) who've spent time back and forth (I'm in the US) and I would really like to visit at some point. It looks fun. o.o (Yay I can be one more dumb white American wandering around! -.-)

Posted by Steed That quote originally continued "...and not much else" but one of my proofreaders thought I was coming on a bit too strong.

Hahahaha. Should have been left in.

Liked the article!

Posted by crows ...and thaaat was a late night ramble and a half >.< I could see that, re: Korea and concentration of photographs/photographers. That being said, I've really liked a lot of the stuff I've seen posted here from Korea. And I've got a fair number of friends (Korean and otherwise) who've spent time back and forth (I'm in the US) and I would really like to visit at some point. It looks fun. o.o (Yay I can be one more dumb white American wandering around! -.-)

It was a good rant I thought. I wrote that entry thinking of some particular examples that I didn't elaborate on because they weren't my pictures.

I used to have an arch enemy here who once used my pictures to locate an old military base I'd found, then she went there and took a lot of taint shots, and later claimed she'd been there first. Didn't want to invoke her name in the article, though the clown car comments are also about her.

Anyway, there's always room for more explorers in Korea, dumb white American or not.