Urban exploration and photography is more than just an activity for thrill seekers—it’s a legitimate act of cultural preservation.
Cameras give urban explorers the ability to document degradation without altering the state of the buildings and are an equally valuable form of preservation as a heritage site or museum.
These are places our society allowed to be forgotten, from malting plants and factories left outside of Ottawa and Montreal, to abandoned farmhouses in rural Ontario. These are places where people lived and worked in recent history, and the photos taken by urban explorers are a way of preserving their decay within the framework of time.
The photos are readily available to anyone with access to the Internet, and can be found on countless databases—in Canada these include Abandoned Ontario and Urbex Playground. The fact that they are so accessible means they are culturally, as well as historically, significant.
Admittedly much of urban exploring does involve some illegal behaviour. While photographers call building owners first in order to obtain permission, often their activities infringe upon trespassing laws. And while photographers do take precautions, there is also an inherent danger in exploring an abandoned building.
But ultimately it is the choice of the photographer to go urban exploring and to take those risks.
Long after the buildings become impossible to enter, the photos will remain as historical and cultural artifacts, a record of what we once valued and what we chose to leave behind.
