I’ve slid down snowy embankments, waded through ankle-deep mystery water, and spent a questionable amount of time alone in collapsing churches to bring you these photos. Over the years, I’ve picked up a few things from my mistakes and near-misses.

So, if you’re starting to explore abandoned places or just want to take better photos once you’re in them, here are six tips that have stuck with me. The kind of tips I wish someone had told me when I was just beginning.

1. Pack Light and Smart

When you’re taking pictures of abandoned buildings, your gear needs to work with you, not against you. I’ve seen people show up with half a studio in their backpack; multiple lenses,  full-size tripods, external lights, and even reflectors. They usually regret it by the second floor.

Most abandoned places aren’t easy to move through. You’ll be climbing over debris and squeezing through tight spaces. You don’t want to be juggling bad gear choices while trying not to fall through the floor. I’ve learned to carry just what I need, and nothing more.

For me, that usually means one camera body, a wide-angle lens, a compact tripod, and a few batteries and cards. That setup gets me 95% of the shots I want, without weighing me down. If it’s a darker spot, I’ll bring a small LED light panel (but again, small is key). If it is a spot that I know has some finer details or really interesting architectural curves, I may also bring a couple other lenses.

It’s also worth thinking about how fast you can pack up and move. If something goes wrong, whether that’s a structural creak freaking you out or unexpected company, you don’t want to be untangling cables or repacking your bags. Keep your kit streamlined and easy to grab.

2. Let the Light Influence You

If you’ve read any of my stuff before, you know I have a thing for windows. They inspired my unique urban decay photography style. Early on, I kept running into the same problem: either I captured the light pouring in, or I captured the room inside, but never both.

So, I got into bracketing: taking multiple shots at different exposures and stitching them together in post. That changed everything. HDR photography lets you keep those contrasts without sacrificing the magic of either.

Take the curvy church in Detroit, for example. I got in just before sunrise, and as light bathed the space, I bracketed the scene and ended up with some of my favorite images. The church was illuminated beautifully and the stained glass was catching the first rays of the morning. Without bracketing, that moment would’ve been impossible to hold onto.

3. Be Patient When You Hit Setbacks

I once fell back into a snowy ditch trying to enter a New York children’s hospital. The entrance was a nightmare, with a steep vertical slope between me and the way in. I slid back down in the slippery snow while trying to climb and the tree I clung to for support literally gave up on me. I landed with a thud, face-first in snow, barely missing my partner. Not my most graceful urbex moment. But here’s the thing: we still got in. And the shots I took inside are some of my most-viewed to this day.

These buildings don’t exactly roll out the red carpet. They’re locked, boarded up, overgrown, half-collapsed. You’ll scramble up walls, get scratched by brambles, or walk around the perimeter four times before you find anything that remotely resembles an entrance. And even then, that “entrance” might be a narrow window frame, a missing panel, or a door that gives way with a loud, reluctant groan.

You don’t need to be reckless, but you do need to be persistent. I’ve had to turn back plenty of times when a site was too dangerous or sealed up tight. There are real risks. These places weren’t made for visitors. They’ve been left to rot, and sometimes they do so spectacularly. So here are a few things I keep in mind every single time I go out:

Urban Decay Safety Tips I Actually Use:

Always explore in daylight. Light fades fast inside these places, and depth perception gets weird the second the sun dips.
Wear sturdy boots. Rusty nails, broken glass, rotten floors (your feet will thank you).
Bring gloves and a mask. Especially if you're in a place with mold, peeling paint, or questionable air. I use a P100-rated mask when things look dicey.
Watch where you step. Test floors before committing your full weight.
Don’t go alone. This one is pretty self-explanatory!
Plan an exit. It sounds dramatic, but you don’t want to be improvising if something goes wrong.
Stay calm. Whether you hear a loud bang, a sudden animal scurry, or your foot goes through a floorboard, panic doesn’t help. Stay still and breathe.

4. Focus on the Colour of Urban Decay

One of the things I didn’t expect when I first started shooting abandoned places was how colorful they’d be. Not bright or cheerful necessarily, but full of deep, complex tones that tell you exactly how time has passed through a space.

Take the Italian “manicomio” in Racconigi. The walls were painted this faded sunflower yellow, and under years of peeling, it had softened into something almost golden. Paired with the rusted bedframes and wooden cabinets, the color really said something. It reminded you this place once tried to feel warm– a nod towards the “moral treatment” trends in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, which encouraged humane treatment of patients.

Similarly, Detroit’s Curvy Church looked grayscale at first glance, but when the sun hit the stained glass, color exploded across the floor.

So when I’m photographing urban decay now, I let color guide the tone. Sometimes I go full HDR to bring it out. Other times, I let one color dominate, like the rust-orange of a staircase or the ivy green taking over a room. It’s not about making things look unreal. It’s about showing the layers of what’s been lost, and what still remains.

5. Pay Attention to Objects

Abandoned buildings are sometimes stripped bare. Vandals, looters, and time itself tend to take their toll. But every now and then, something’s been left behind. I’ve found some of my most compelling images didn’t come from grand architecture or dramatic decay, but from small, ordinary things frozen in place.

Take the abandoned hospital in Germany, for example. Deep inside, I came across a dusty box of medical projector slides. I didn’t think much of them at first, until I realized they were from early AIDS research. Slide after slide, I saw records of a terrifying moment in medical history, tucked away in the shadows of a building that had long since been emptied. That changed how I shot the space.

Another time, I found a newspaper in a Connecticut house from 1936. The headline read: Edward bids empire farewell. Begins exile as George reigns. That building was falling apart, but someone, decades ago, thought that news mattered enough to keep. And there it was, outliving its readers.

These kinds of finds are rare. You won’t see them in every location. But when they’re there, they’re worth your attention.

Finding and photographing urban decay objects

It’s tempting to move things for the “perfect shot,” but I try to photograph objects exactly as I find them. The crookedness, the dust, the way something’s been knocked over. That’s all part of the story.
If you find something compelling, like those AIDS slides, don’t just photograph the object. Think about its context. What does the light look like in that corner? Is there a way to frame it that shows how forgotten it is?
Objects are invitations. Let them steer the tone of your shoot. Are you documenting tragedy, nostalgia, absurdity? A lone record player in a children’s hospital sunroom says something very different from a graffitied sink in a derelict asylum.

Objects ground a space in time. They’re the evidence of the people who lived, worked, or passed through these walls. And when you find them, even if they’re as small as a photo card tucked behind a beam, treat them like the fragile clues they are.

6. Respect the Space

I always say this, but it bears repeating. Don’t break anything, and don’t take anything! Leave things where you found them, and don’t announce locations online unless they’re already public and protected. Urbex is built on trust—trust that the building will still be there next week, trust that someone else won’t ruin it for the rest of us. Most of the urban decay locations I’ve photographed, like Racconigi’s abandoned asylum, are still (mostly) intact because people took that silent agreement seriously.

Final Thoughts

Urban decay photography is part documentary, part dreamscape. Every time I step into an abandoned space, I feel like I’m walking through a memory someone forgot to erase. The best advice I can give? Be present and take photos that reflect your experience of the space.

6 Top Tips for Urban Decay Photography