Photo: "Patient Wing at Sunrise"

 
 

Inside one of the patient wings of a former Alabama State Hospital, at sunrise. 

This asylum opened in 1861 and remained in operation for over 100 years. In 2010, the University of Alabama purchased the property and demolished most of the hospital's wings, keeping only the administration section of this historic relic. 

Photo: "Inside An Isolation Cell"

Ever wonder what it would be like to be in seclusion, inside a psychiatric hospital? This room is designed as an isolation cell for patient's that suffered from the more problematic mental diseases or ones that rendered them dangerous to themselves or others. 

The windows in the door gave the nurses a way to check on the patients. The top window gave a view of the full room and the lower window would give a nurse eyes on a patient who was hiding against the door. 

Sadly, this asylum has since been demolished...

Photo: "Blinding Perspective"

Construction on the Hartsville Nuclear Plant came to a halt midway through the process, leaving the plant looking other-worldly. It's full of abstract shapes, rebar poking out from cement, steps leading to incomplete floors and some beautiful patterns around the lower ring of the unfinished cooling tower. This particular tower had been completed and stood a few hundred feet tall, looking down on the disarray below. 

Photo: "K Building"

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The Polk Building, or K Building, at the Western State Hospital in Tennessee, formerly known as the West Tennessee Hospital for the Insane, was constructed in 1932 as a psychopathic facility with 400 beds for patients.

(Print - http://smu.gs/1iHWfHu )

Photo: "Unparallelled Worlds"

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There was something so mysterious about this unfinished Tennessee Valley Authority nuclear plant. Maybe it was the rebar dancing out of the concrete, the darkness that swallowed the lower floors, or the lime green grass breathing life back into this facility. Whatever it was, it brought me ecstasy. 

If you've never walked through one of these abandoned time capsules and stood in the place where nobody has worked, lived or been a patient in since it shut down, it's an incredible experience that can't be parallelled. 

(Prints - http://smu.gs/1kaVeZG)