Abandoned Places: A Photographic Exploration of More Than 100 Worlds We Have Left Behind

Children’s schoolbooks left open in a classroom, trees entangled in a rusting Ferris wheel, hulks of ships high and dry, miles from any water – seeing images like these we’re bound to wonder: what happened here?

Ranging from the urban aquarium of a flooded shopping mall to majestic shipwrecks, from aircraft graveyards to forgotten railway stations, from leper colonies to radiation zones, Abandoned Places explores 65 fascinating lost worlds from all around the globe. Arranged thematically from industrial to military sites, from ghosts towns to recreational sites, the book explains through extended captions the story of how each place came to be abandoned – natural or chemical disaster, war, economic collapse, changing attitudes and tastes. Often it’s because the world has moved on and these places are no longer of use or interest in the march of progress.

Throughout, though, emerges a picture not of what has been lost, but of what remains. Left to the elements but also ignored by humanity, the photographs of these ghost towns, crumbling structures and vessels illuminate worlds for us that we thought were lost. Through these, we gain a glimpse into the past.

With more than 150 outstanding color photographs exploring hauntingly beautiful places over one or two spreads, Abandoned Places is an excellent pictorial examination of worlds that we’ve left behind.