Romain Veillon is a French photographer specialized in the visit of urban decay places, a practice called ‘urbex’. As an urban explorer he manages to catch the out-of-date, sometime post-apocalyptic, feeling in the air of those locations, where nature reasserts itself. Romain Veillon learnt his skills as an autodidact. He has photographed abandoned areas around Paris at first. Romain Veillon has extended his passion during trips through the world. With his photos Romain Veillon establishes a dialogue between past, present and future. Some of those places pursued their decay, other ones were demolished, vandalized or restored. Photography become the witness of a time, the optical record of a building. In Romain Veillon’s snapshots the viewer can project a fantasized story.

Abandoned Buildings

I am interested specifically in Veillon’s work on abandoned buildings. Similar to Matt Emmet’s work, he seeks abandoned and unseen place’s taking sort of abstract images of them to show the world.

During his explorations of abandoned places across Europe, he has stumbled upon enchanting architectures that have been left to decay for decades. In his latest book Green Urbex: The World Without Us, Veillon explored what the world would look like if the human race disappeared and nature took its course without any human interference.

-Mr Veillon wrote that he wants each photograph to tell a story and make people think about what had previously occurred at places that are now derelict and about what the world would look like if mankind disappeared.

Image Analysis

The image above is of a church in France that had been abandoned. While the tiled floor featured stones that had broken and greenery that filled the area, the magnificent architecture and detailed patterns carved along the walls remained intact, along with the colourful stained glass windows that were highly featured on religious buildings. The composition of the image is very sharp. Every wall or corner, every detail is aliened and arranged neatly. The lighting is natural and brightens up the image, although the building has been abandoned, it still appears to be pretty and partly put together.