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UER Forum > UE Photography > Another 2019 in Review Thread (Viewed 1479 times)
miber 


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Another 2019 in Review Thread
< on 12/30/2019 12:33 PM >
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2019 was my first year where I didn't have school tying me down most of the time, and I think I definitely made the most of that new freedom.

The first exploring of the year began in spring, with a month-long road trip around much of the Northeast and Midwest.

Most of our road trips begin with a long drive out of Florida, through desolate exploring wasteland. We tried our hand at some locations in Georgia and the Carolinas, but they were all busts for us, and we quickly moved on to greener urbex pastures in the north.


The first successful and enjoyable location of 2019 was an admin building at an abandoned hospital. There were a few areas where lights still worked, and some extremely creepy steam tunnels. Unfortunately the main hospital these tunnels connected to was already an active construction site and being prepped for demolition. We could have probably pulled off a night-time or weekend exploration, but we decided to just move on.


Next we tried to get into a large asylum that's supposed to be demolished soon. We got into one of the outlying buildings hoping to find a connection into the main hospital, but there wasn't one. So we started scoping the perimeter, checking all the nooks and crannies of which this building had many. We knew there was security but we thought the crazy layout of the building's courtyards and wings would make it really easy to hide when he drives by. Well there must be working cameras or something because this security guy zoomed right up to the exact nook that we were in and promptly kicked us off the property.


I'm gonna mix up the order of the trip a bit just to make things a little less simple to figure out. Anyway, I finally made it to this hospital which had been on my radar for years, and it didn't disappoint. I could have spent another whole day in there looking at all the vintage medical equipment.


So glad to have made it to this place before the renovations began. Bryan actually gashed his hand wide open on the entry and ended up having to go to the hospital, but not until after we spent 6 hours inside. I don't think he has any regrets.


You'd think after exploring the previous theater, this one would pale in comparison, but I still found it extremely enjoyable. It had a very unique character and a lot of natural light. Plus it consists of two different multi-balcony theaters built directly on top of each other, which is insane. This is the smaller, upper one.


This hospital was mind-blowing, a real time-capsule of a place and full of surprises.


This water-pumping station was something we spotted from the train years ago, but never made our way inside of until this year. This was one of the less impressive rooms but I really liked the look of this pump. After we got out we attempted to fly the drone when a cop pulled up on us. He said he just wanted to make sure we weren't going to break in, and we let him know that we had no plans to do so at any point in the future.


From this hospital comes one of my favorite memories of the year. Our friend Ryan moved some fuses around and managed to get the pinsetters working again. The ball-return chute and everything still worked as it would have when the institution was operational. Naturally we bowled a few frames.


This state school was a fun one to explore. The first several buildings we checked out were really disappointing, but as we moved to the other side of the campus we started to find more goodies. After exploring the facility all day and not seeing a single sign of security or law-enforcement, we decided to return the next day for more shots. However, within 15 minutes of being there a cop started zooming all over the property and circled our building a few times. Feeling spooked, we decided to leave.


In 2019 my interest in power plants would really start to ramp up, and now they're firmly my favorite type of location to explore. This one was a little bit sketchy because it's really in that grey area of abandonment. The waterfall sized roof-leak in the turbine hall had us thinking it was mostly abandoned, but then we found logs in the control room that were dated the literal current day. So yea, that was fun and not terrifying at all.


This religious school was a real gem. They've since put up a fence around the property and announced renovation plans, but they involve demolition of pretty much every part of the building except the facade.


This ski resort was absolutely massive and had some really interesting areas to explore.


This trip saw our first visit to Detroit. Many say it's well past its prime for urbex, but we still found plenty to do to fill up our 5 days there. We also met up with some great people and just had a great time in the city. Will definitely have to return someday!



The top floor of the Fisher Body plant holds all the goodies, but here's a pic of one of the middle floors. This was the natural color of this shot, thanks to some blue film over the windows.


Walking up to this school, the high level of vandalism was immediately noticeable. However, there was so much stuff left behind in here that it ended up being a surprise hit. We even returned on another day for more time here.


It's a shame what happened to this high school's auditorium. Still, a very impressive sight even with the fire damage.

After Detroit, we moved on to Chicago, and proceeded to strike out on every location we had planned. But we couldn't complain with how well the trip had been going. We moved on to the next city.


We had a run in with the caretaker at this mall, but he ended up being a really nice guy. Unfortunately about a month after we explored it, he died of electrocution while working on the building. Couldn't believe it when I saw the news article, but it had his picture and it was definitely the same guy we spoke to. My brief interaction with him has really stuck with me as a reminder of the fragility of life.


This power plant had one of my favorite turbine halls I've seen. The vibrant green color scheme made the turbines feel like a row of precious gems or crystals. The white tiled walls completed the clean look. This plant was one of the last to be built with such attention to detail, as newer plants shifted towards being more utilitarian. The plant was pretty vandalized at the time we visited, which led us to posting a video of it, but now I'm not so sure that was a good call. The more other abandoned power plants I become aware of, the more I realize just how unique this one was. Hopefully the vandalism hasn't continued to progress.


This hospital had some EXTREMELY decayed buildings that still had working electricity. And a very distinctive chapel.


We busted out on most of our spots for St. Louis, but this theater was a cool little place. We also tried the Jamestown Mall while we were in town but we managed to scare the crap out of some scrappers and vice versa. The mall was in a much more demolished state than we had hoped for, and with the scrappers following us around it was a little uncomfortable, so we didn't stick around long.


On our way back home we managed to see a few more interesting places, but this theater is the only one that I got around to editing photos from. These are probably some of the most intact vintage projectors I've seen.

After that trip, I don't think I explored again until the fall. Bryan moved to the Northeast US, so I made my way up there for some urbex.


To start, we finally made it inside a bucket-list location that we had failed at at least 3 times before. We had always tried to pre-dawn this plant just to find a vehicle idling or workers right up against the building. Eventually we realized that we were trying too hard for this place, and we showed up in the middle of the day to find it a ghost town. We ended up returning two more times to take it all in.

Next, Bryan and I were invited to China by our friends Chris Luckhardt and Rantropolis. We were quite apprehensive about exploring in China, and I don't think I need to explain why. But we figured this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and decided to go.

Exploring in China ended up being difficult, but not in the way I expected. There ended up not being much of a threat of getting in "real" trouble, for example with the government or official police. However, every single location did have some sort of private security, and dogs that would alert them of your presence as soon as you were on the property. This resulted in us being "caught" at every single location, which usually, but not always, resulted in us being kicked out. But as we racked up more and more experience, we began to feel pretty confident that we were just going to keep being kicked out of places rather than arrested. That being said, we did intentionally avoid any type of military or government associated ruins. There was an abandoned aircraft carrier that seemed very interesting but we decided to stay away for that reason.


The first place we "explored" in China was a small abandoned theme park. I say explored in quotes because we were caught within 10 minutes, and really only got to see the place as we were being escorted out.


After that failure, we took a taxi to the middle of nowhere to check out an abandoned power plant. Unfortunately we were found by the dog pretty quickly and we only made it into the laboratory. But that was still pretty cool, as you can see. We were then stuck in this tiny village for several hours as we tried to arrange a ride back to civilization.


On the next day, things really started to pick up. We checked out an absolutely massive abandoned theme park. You could fit both Six Flags New Orleans and Nara Dreamland within the footprint of this place. There were several security dogs here, and the guards were flying drones to watch us, but they never actually came to get us, probably because it would be difficult to catch up to us with the sheer size of the place.


About 5 failed locations after the theme park, we made it to this abandoned water park. We were caught here within a few minutes, but fortunately the "guards" here let us keep exploring. The guards were really just farmers who work the nearby fields and use some of the abandoned buildings from the park as housing. And yes it was exactly as 3rd world as it sounds.


This abandoned mega-development was another one where we were able to continue exploring after being caught due to the size of the place. There was just nothing one security guard could do, other than try to scare us off with his army of small but mean dogs.



This resort ended up being one of the craziest adventures of the trip because it was just Bryan and I alone. It took us forever to get out there, and when we made it we saw two security guards, and two dogs which were considerably larger than the others we had run into before. We decided to just start right off the bat by asking for permission. My first google translation probably said something along the lines of "Can we photograph the abandoned hotel?" to which the guards shook their heads no. Then I tried "We can pay a fee" to which they also shook their heads no. I turn around and look at Bryan, and he has the same defeated look on his face I do. I try one more time and this time say "Please is there any way? We came all the way from Shanghai." And to my shock, the guard steps out of his shack and opens the gate.

We were in, but there was a catch. One of the 2 guards was going to be our escort, and we essentially just had to follow him and go at his pace. We ended up only getting about an hour inside, in a place where I could have easily spent all day. The resort was stunning, and was in a perfect sweet spot of all-natural decay.

At one point the guard actually showed us their room where they lived, and it was directly next to rooms that were completely covered in mold. Power was cut to the building, but they had some extension cords running in from somewhere to power things like an electric kettle and some lights. They had a garden outside where they grow their own food. It was a pretty crazy window into how different life can be.


This is another shot of the resort. I've done 1 pic per location for everything else and this photo probably isn't worth breaking that consistency, but I really want to give more of an idea of how crazy this resort was. It was just one visually striking room after another.

To get back from this resort, we ended up having to take the bus. The entire bus was full except for 2 seats near the front. These 2 seats however, faced backwards while every other seat faced forwards. So we had a bit of an awkward ride back into town as 20 Chinese people stared at us for half an hour. We were used to getting stares on the street by now, but for some reason being "captive" on this bus just made it so much more uncomfortable. But still, I wouldn't trade the experiences I had that day for anything.

After China, we popped over to Japan for a few days of exploring.


We met up with a Japanese explorer by the name of Gakuranman and he took us to this incredible clinic in the countryside. After that, we went to some seaside ammunition bunkers which I would have enjoyed a lot more if the area wasn't infested with leeches. When I felt that one had managed to crawl all the way up my pants just a few inches away from my junk is when I started to lose it. When we got back from the wilderness I found a bathroom and shook out my pants to find a massive 4 inch long grub-looking thing inside. Before I could even get a chance to get a good look at it, a cat ran in and grabbed it. I'm presuming it ate it.


Next we headed to the remote volcanic island of Hachijo, a once-bustling tourist hot spot. Many of the hotels have gone out of business and that's why we were there. This shot is from what is definitely the best abandoned resort on the island, known as the Royal Hotel. There were all kinds of rooms in all states of decay.

Right off the back of our Asia trip, we hit a few more spots stateside.


This asylum was one that we had tried years ago but were unable to find an entrance. After receiving a tip from a friend about a way in, we decided to take a crack at it. It's a Kirkbride, so naturally the architecture was incredible, and there were a few good artifacts left behind.


A small but photogenic power plant.


A classic abandoned theater.


Gakuranman who we had just met in Japan, was now in the States for some exploring, and we checked out this abandoned jet testing facility with him. It's a spot we had overlooked for a long time, and we were pleasantly surprised by how interesting it was.

After another brief hiatus, Bryan and I finished off the year with one last road trip. This time, we packed our itinerary with power plants.


This control room was far better than what we were expecting, considering the turbine hall was almost completely stripped out.


This exploration had some seriously sketchy moments.


This plant had a really nice turbine hall, but the control room was good too.


This was a small plant, but absolutely incredible in terms of how much of a perfect time-capsule it was.


2019 was the year I finally made it to the infamous trolley graveyard. It was hard to get a shot with this little graffiti.


Autopsy rooms are always one of the more exciting things to find.


My final explore of the year was this power plant. I took one of my favorite photos ever here, but I'm gonna go with posting a different, less conspicuous one for now.

While exploring, we heard voices entering the plant and hid for nearly an hour thinking they were workers. Eventually, we felt like there was a 95% chance they were just other explorers and we made our way out of hiding. Sure enough, they were explorers and we ended up doing a bunch of chatting. I also had some stairs collapse out from underneath me later and I took a dunk in some nasty PCB-laden water. Fortunately it was above freezing that day so I didn't have to worry about frostbite, but the rest of the day was made a little less enjoyable.

Anyway, it was a great year, possibly my favorite year of exploring yet. This is going to be a lazy ending to this post because I just realized I spent like 3 hours typing this all up and I'm tired... Hope you all enjoyed reading.

-Michael




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Re: Another 2019 in Review Thread
< Reply # 1 on 12/30/2019 1:07 PM >
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Damn dude. This is an absolutely phenomenal set, down to the very last photo. I appreciate all the effort you took to type out the little descriptions as well, I got a laugh out of you folks using the bowling alley. Hope you dont grow a third leg from that power plant basement water!!

I say it a lot, but I really cant wait to see what 2020 has in store for you. Hopefully we can get together!



[last edit 12/30/2019 1:48 PM by EsseXploreR - edited 1 times]

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decayed state 


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Re: Another 2019 in Review Thread
< Reply # 2 on 12/30/2019 1:35 PM >
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Holy cow! From pictures, locations, and descriptions, i'm giving it a good 100/100! This will probably beats every 2019 review thread on uer haha




mookster 


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Re: Another 2019 in Review Thread
< Reply # 3 on 12/30/2019 3:27 PM >
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That's an awesome year, and amazing photos as well. Kudos to you.




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Re: Another 2019 in Review Thread
< Reply # 4 on 12/30/2019 3:32 PM >
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What a year man!

Congrats on all those beautiful locations, and photography wise you are top notch!

Hope we can finally meet next year and hit some plants!




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Re: Another 2019 in Review Thread
< Reply # 5 on 12/30/2019 3:56 PM >
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Great work all around my man, great captions and top notch photo work!

It was great to hang out with you guys in Detroit and I hope we can do it again in 2020!!

And JUST in case you forgot, here is my sexy time pic with my Proper People shirt








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Pearson 


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Re: Another 2019 in Review Thread
< Reply # 6 on 12/30/2019 5:08 PM >
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What a year! It’s been amazing watching your channel and the videos quality grow over the past couple years and it’s getting to the point where I don’t know what you guys could do better. Exceptional photos and write ups for each one of them.




Heavy.Metal.Spook 


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Re: Another 2019 in Review Thread
< Reply # 7 on 12/30/2019 6:36 PM >
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I'm completely jealous




inkd 


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Re: Another 2019 in Review Thread
< Reply # 8 on 12/30/2019 8:39 PM >
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A great year for you guys. Love the channel.




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TheSwanStation 


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Re: Another 2019 in Review Thread
< Reply # 9 on 12/30/2019 9:31 PM >
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I've been following you guys on YouTube, you're the only exploring channel I watch on and sort of regular basis. I see quite a few familiar spots in there! I'm glad to see the bowling alley is still intact, I heard it had been stripped out. That is probably the best abandoned bowling alley I will ever see. Looks like the water damage at the ski resort is getting really bad these days.

Keep up the good work! I'm excited to see what 2020 had in store for you two.




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Re: Another 2019 in Review Thread
< Reply # 10 on 12/30/2019 10:06 PM >
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I love seeing these year in review threads, and this one is another overload of awesomeness! Great job on the shots and the writeup; looks like a very rewarding year. 😊
May you, and all of us find even half this kind of success and adventure in the coming new decade!




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Re: Another 2019 in Review Thread
< Reply # 11 on 12/30/2019 10:38 PM >
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Amazing collection, a year like that is something to be truly proud of, the photography too is just fantastic. Kudos for living it up and allowing us to peek in through the window.




skatchkins 


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Re: Another 2019 in Review Thread
< Reply # 12 on 12/30/2019 10:50 PM >
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So many awesome locations. Love your colors and depth of field.
Well done!




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Re: Another 2019 in Review Thread
< Reply # 13 on 12/31/2019 1:47 AM >
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These are all fucking awesome. Such a great variety of places represented here, most of them with killer videos to boot. Given what you've posted here, I can't wait to see your upcoming videos to go along with the last few of these shots!




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Re: Another 2019 in Review Thread
< Reply # 14 on 9/16/2020 1:01 PM >
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Hah! Just stumbled upon your thread browsing around. What great memories of 2019. I had a lot of fun exploring with you guys in Japan and USA. Here's to more adventures in the hopefully not too distant future!




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