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At your own risk. Photographer Jeff Edwards works on his art inside a vacant, dilapidated farmhouse in south Tiverton. He shoots with black and white film in his Canon EOS-3 to document stark images of decay and abandonment. PHOTO BY JACQUELINE MARQUE
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Forgive those who trespass
Jeff Edwards breaks the law to pursue his urban exploration hobby. An artist has to take risks after all.
BY LEN SOUSA
"I think everybody has a want as a child to get into abandoned places. They're either completely terrified of them or have always wanted to get inside - and then, once they do get in, they usually get scared and run out."
Jeff Edwards, 23, is among a new breed of explorer. Ignoring the exotic locales National Geographic might find appealing, Edwards invades derelict buildings in an effort to photograph and document their decay, creating art from the artlessly abandoned.
Once simply called trespassers, an entire community of young men and women engage in what they call "urban exploration" (or "urbex"), where the goal is to enter abandoned buildings and investigate the grounds. For some, it's just a hobby or an excuse to vandalize discarded property, but for Edwards, the reasons go a bit deeper.
"I like to find certain places that I think will be good photo ops - I'll explore them and everything like that - but it's mostly just photo for me," he says. "Once, I was at a place for five hours and barely went through a roll of film. I only developed maybe four pictures from it. It all depends. I'm very picky about (what I use)."
Edwards lives in Tiverton and has been involved in photography for the past three years. His photographs have been exhibited at Gallery X in New Bedford, Mass., Grimshaw Gudewicz Gallery at Bristol Community College in Fall River, Mass., and at Empire Tea & Coffee in Newport. The way he sees it, urbex isn't merely about exploration, it's also an artistic way to examine the forbidden and forgotten through photographs he prints on oversized canvas and discarded vinyl records.
"Well, half the lure is that you're not supposed to go in there," he says about his desire to enter abandoned buildings. "Ever since I was a kid, I've wanted to get into these places. There's something about why they've been abandoned that's always intrigued me. I started photographing them mostly because I found the imagery so irresistible - very cryptic in some areas and very beautiful in others."
But the love of his art doesn't cloud the truth from Edwards. If a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, then the stylish-sounding "urban exploration" is still viewed simply as "trespassing" by the local police, a fact the photographer is very much aware of.
"You can get arrested for it," he admits. "I've been kicked out of a lot of places before, but usually they'll see the camera and let me go. But I have heard of people getting busted before and getting the maximum fine. Because if you do get caught, and let's say you have a screwdriver or a crowbar with you, then you can be busted with trespassing, vandalism, criminal intent, suspicion of thievery - anything like that."
Close call
The young photographer is full of amusing anecdotes about his urban expeditions - such as the day he was almost arrested while visiting a site in rural Rhode Island. "I'm walking up to the place and I see these kids get dropped off by an SUV. They throw some bags over and hop the fence right in front of ongoing traffic," he says shaking his head. "If they had just paid attention, you can walk a few feet down, go around the corner to the back of the building, and get in through the back door."
These small tricks of the trade line Edwards' stories, along with a varied history of the buildings - and a ready history of most New England mental institutions, which make up a good portion of most urbexing - as well as the kind of photos one might expect to take there ("sewer rats as big as your head"). But he soon circles back to the inexperienced trespassers: "I didn't think anything of them and went inside the building. But after a little while, I started to hear sirens. I walked around one corner and there were at least 20 cops inside the place." Secretly, Edwards made his way back outside without being seen. "Because if you're caught inside," he reveals, "they're more likely to charge you with trespassing; if you're caught outside, they'll usually just tell you to leave."
Pesky police encounters aside, there are still plenty of other dangers in the world of urban exploration. Most buildings' interiors are lined with harmful mold, and despite their brick facades, years of neglect have often left their construction severely compromised. In fact, a key reason most police officers want to keep explorers off these properties is simply to prevent serious injury.
"I've fallen through floors before," Edwards states matter-of-factly. "It's a good idea to go with somebody in case someone gets lost or hurt. And I don't care if you don't have mold allergies, you're gonna get stuffed up in a lot of these places because, for the most part, they board all the windows up."
So what about wearing some breathing protection? "I should wear a mask," he confesses, "but I always forget it. Asbestos is a big problem in a lot of these buildings. I probably have a nice chunk of it growing in my lungs."
These risks are all a means to an end for the photographer. Unlike many of his peers, he refuses to work with a digital camera or Photoshop and uses only black and white film in his Canon EOS-3. "I don't like digital. It's too easy. You have to play with a lot of things on a negative until you start taking really good negative pictures. But with digital, it could be a completely crappy picture and you can just enhance the tones or the color and tweak it until it's perfect. It's just too easy to fix things. You don't have to think about the picture as much before you take it."
Edwards' photos are stark, high-contrast compositions that vividly illustrate the sobering view he has of these old buildings. An abstract, film noir quality soaks his work. And while he isn't interested in being viewed as a documentary photographer, he does see his art as a way to bring these dead buildings to life. "Most of these places aren't going to be around for much longer," he notes. "Part of me just wants to capture them before they're gone."
Jeff Edwards will exhibit his photographs at Gallery X, 169 William St., New Bedford, Mass., through Oct. 15. The gallery is open Wed.-Sun. from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Call (508) 992-2675.
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