So this is my 3rd time at this place now, because I only ever have an hour or so to do it. It's the spiral staircase hospital in VA for those of you who have been here. After a tricky climb up to a window and tight squeeze through, we were in. We decided to use one of the many heaters laying around to act as a ramp for us to get out. I had to get "warmed up", if you'd call it that, so the first few shots I took aren't the greatest.
Anyway, here are the shots from another building of this complex:

1.


2.


3. I opened this door expecting a bathroom, but the contents of the toilet are what got me. This, and another toilet here with a pool of blood and small bones, are probably my nastiest finds so far. Just for some scale, this room was aprox 3x4 ft.


4.


5. This place was originally a hospital but then closed. A jail moved in a while later but didn't take up the whole place. I thought that they only used one building for the jail so this was a little weird. I later realized that this building was used too.


6. This place has easily the best pealy paint I've seen, in person or in pictures. I just forget to get pictures of the best stuff lol.


7. About here is when I started to get into the groove, I guess you could say.


8.


9. This, along with some other little clues, is what made me realize that this was part of the jail. It's easier to read on some of the other walls but it says "NOTICE Your calls are monitored and recorded. By using the inmate telephone system you consent.... monitoring...."


10.


11. The news paper, or rather just an entire classifieds paper, was dated Sunday, June 30, 2002


12. This is a good example of why fisheyes suck to use for non fisheye stuff. I mainly use it as a wide and correct for the distortion but, as you can see on the window and the bottom right, correcting it completely destroys it on the edges and makes getting lines vertical very tricky.


13. There was no door or wall to get into this bathroom, and as you can see no doors or real stalls either. I guess this was for the worst inmates because the other bathrooms were a little better. This was also in the basement and you had to go through some big gate thing to get into it as you can see in picture 15. Btw, the toilet with the blood and bones was in here. I used a tiny bit of artificial lighting bounced off the ceiling here to fill some shadows and I quite like how it turned out.


14.


15.


16. The front desk. Using a tad bit of artificial lighting again.


Thanks for looking

Always interested to see you shots, and these are great. Seems like a really unique location.

What focal length are you shooting on? Just curious. Some of these look a lot wider, and I was wondering if you're using a variable lens or changing lenses.

Posted by shadeblanco Always interested to see you shots, and these are great. Seems like a really unique location. What focal length are you shooting on? Just curious. Some of these look a lot wider, and I was wondering if you're using a variable lens or changing lenses.

Thanks! I'm using a 18-55 and a 8mm fisheye. I'll use the fisheye if I'm ever in a small room or shooting something close. I almost always correct for the distortion, but it gives a very dramatic wide angle look. Sometimes it looks better that way and sometimes it makes it look pretty bad.

This is on a apsc crop sensor, so 28-82mm and 12mm for full frame.

Cool place. First and last shots are winners.

These are some sweet shots...you make this place so much more interesting each time you go there. As far as I'm concerned (with my amateurish photography skills), these are instant classics! Love that peely arch in pic 4...and pic 16 made me drool a bit, too.
Good luck on your next trip; I know I shouldn't put it off too long, but I do intend to get there at some point soon.
Always great to see your work, I look forward to much more! 😀