While perusing the library of my travel photos, I found a surprising result. Faces and landscapes were few and far between. Crumbling brick, rusted door knobs, cracked walls, paint discoloration, and patterns of flaking exteriors took center stage. Why?

Because I see things differently. Not only do deserted buildings and decaying walls provide powerful settings for photography, but they are themselves, a form of art.

I see beauty in decay, stories and legend in the abandoned, rejuvenation in the old, and endurance for the decrepit. I was an urban explorer before I knew urban exploration, or urbex, existed. I love to document the dilapidated and decrepit. Take a look. See its beauty. See things differently.

Art Lessons

Found among the debris of disregarded buildings is the great professor of color theory. The mix of colors, patterns, and shapes that form from wear and tear provide art lessons of the natural kind. They inform the palette of painters and delight the eye of those who appreciate art.

Urban exploration develops an eye for the aesthetics of decay. Through the camera lens, photographers learn to frame exquisite landscapes of colors, textures, and patterns. They snap their pictures and document the eroding walls and deteriorating doors.

For the photographer, the lessons in art go beyond color studies to recognizing a remarkable backdrop. They teach skills in perspective—when to go in close on the details and when to pull back to think about the entire composition.

Nature’s Paintbrush

Nature paints with living colors of moss, ivy, and oxidation. Environmental factors take effect over time, exposing the raw layers of what lies beneath. Humidity causes discoloration and stained patterns, while rain flakes the walls. These are the unlikely mediums of nature’s paintbrush that create the aesthetics relished by urban and rural explorers alike.

Nature alters architecture, interacting with what humans have built. She animates a dormant surface, producing wonderfully erratic and random displays of color, texture and pattern. These spectacular shows of decay are of the moment and are the prize of urban and rural explorers.

Once Nature starts to take over, every moment counts. The process is a constant evolution, one in which change comes from both decomposition and the sprouting of new plant life. Standing in front of a scene of urban decay is like watching a live performance—a year, a month, or even a day later, the mutations create a new look.

Urban and rural exploration teaches how to see beauty in the most unlikely of subjects. Decaying walls and buildings and beds, however, are more than an artistic opportunity or nature’s playground. They also tell powerful stories.

Stories in the Abandoned

Explorers of all types need imagination and courage for their journeys. Urban exploration is no different. Although rotten floors and unstable ceilings can be a challenging setting, abandoned buildings produce unique photographic stories.

Students once studied in these very desks. Photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre safeguard the memory with a camera.

Photos of Detroit’s deserted theaters and dust-caked hotels preserve a story of time passing—a story of people coming and going, of an empire rising and fading away.

Like the rings of a tree, you can count the layers of dust or paint to imagine the history that the walls have witnessed over the years. Perhaps a family celebrated their success here by checking into this 1920s luxury suite. Maybe they invited a pianist to serenade them as they ate a decadent meal. Were they part of the social segregation that caused the abandonment of many buildings in the city?

Abandoned buildings are a mausoleum of sorts, where stories of the past are buried. When photographs from urban explorers preserve these relics, they turn the rotting past into a monument of the present.

The ruins become the roots of a present-day place, the survivors, heritage sites in their own right. They evoke eerie, nostalgic emotions, and they house awe-inspiring stories of heroic destruction.

Oh, I See Decay Differently

Rust may be a sign of disuse and chipped paint a sign of failure to “keep up appearances,” but the art of decay revealed in my urban and rural exploration makes me see things differently. With fresh and creative eyes, I see beauty and inspiration in the old, lost, disregarded, and abandoned. What do you see?