I decided to take a day visit again to Volklinger Hutte with my wife this time. She could use her new Olympus E-PL1 while I could indulge myself with my rangefinder. Last time I went there I felt there was still enough left to warant a revisit so that's what we did.

You can find the update to Volklinger Hutte 2010

Didn’t have time to enter the main building so made some quick snaps from the outside, there weren’t that many photo’s and I had forgotten about them. That’s why I post them this late.

Fort 7

Yes, I [finally] put my galleries online of train graveyards. There are more train graveyards around then you would think, with people being able to fly easily with sites like Fly.com, there is becoming less use for some old train lines. Trains and trainstations still have that little bit of romantic nostalgia about them from the old days, think steam trains, Orient Express etc...
I visited two trainyards for the moment:

All updates in the Train Graveyards gallery

I made a revisit to Cheratte, a place took photographs of many years ago. The buildings haven’t changed but it’s not the same anymore. Cheratte must be one of those “landmark” urbex places that everyone “needs to have visited”. Surely I think thousands have been there by now. I still remember the very first time I entered the building in 2003. Not much graphitti or any other indication of recent visitors other than the people who last shut the door when they closed down the mine.
The contrast with today could not be bigger: many have left their markings on the walls, many artifacts I remember were gone and during the 4 hours we spent on site, we encountered 2 German photography groups, a Dutch photographer with 2 models, A bunch of kids with camera’s shooting in the mid tower and last but not least: about 15-20 fully combat dressed guys who were playing a wargame! It’s not the serene place to shoot pictures it once was
In a way this is a pity, but I still enjoyed the time spent there, although I realise for me it will be the last visit.

Because of the revisit, I decided the just redo the old gallery as well, removed some images and added the new ones.

Cheratte Harasd revisit

Yes, this is the original factory where they made the famous cristals from Val Saint Lambert. This old part is abandoned, but the rest of the plant is still in operation.

Val Saint Lambert

This place has served several purposes. It was a sanatorium for children back in the days and also served as sort of a big atelier for several artists. An old firetruck is parked in front. I have seldom seen so much crap dumped in a building. I didn’t take any pictures of it, it was a waste of megapixels

Preventorium Dolhain

Hugo is much like many other mines from that period. What interested me in particular in this place though was the locker rooms where workers used to hang their clothes on metal cages that were hoisted to the ceiling. One can only image the smell
I didn’t visit the rest of the site besides this locker because it photographically wasn’t much different from most ordinary abandoned factories [and we were also on a schedule...]

Zeche Hugo

This place seemed to be a sanatorium at a certain stage, but I don’t know much else about it. Much of the large villa is ceiled off and in the surrounding buildings there is not much to see anymore.

Villa Victoria Stift

Panacolor studio’s [as it is generally known] was a very sophisticated sound synchronisation studio build right after the second world war. The studio was also used for the voice-overs in German language of foreign films. It was abandoned in the late 90’s and to this day most of the equipment is still there!
Unfortunately when we arrived, there was already a “posse” of 5 people inside taking pictures. It was much too crowded for my taste so I didn’t get to shoot the pictures I was looking after. We cleared the area after about a bit more than 2 hours. I heard the other photographers stayed there all day.

Panacolor Studio's

A few years ago during the winter period I visited Volklinger Hutte. This former mamoth steel factory was build in the second half of the 19th century and I believe it must have been one of the biggest of its kind. The biggest part of the site is reconverted for public access and is now part of the industrial heritage. During the first visit we only shot the inside of the Boiler Room. During the second visit now we walked around public parts in the factory. Well only part of it actually, because the site is in fact too big to visit in detail in one day.

Volklinger Hutte Revisit

Went on a 2-day trip to Paris with my wife a few months ago during the winter period. Paris is too big to try and see in a mere 2 days so upfront we decided only to visit a few landmarks and interesting sites, not too much at all, guess what: we still did only half! Another trip’s begging, maybe now during the summer period... would be nice to have some contrast. For food and drinks Paris is cheap compared to where I live!!

Paris Trip 2008

On a trip trough the Liege area, we came across this abandoned castle. We saw the towers through the treeline from the distance and it looked really promising. But unfortunately it had been in decay for quite some time. Add the odd fire now and then...

Chateau de Seraing

I put some images online from a visit to Abbaye-de-Villers. An old abbey in the south of Belgium.

Abbaye-de-Villers

I visited the Centrale Thermique building at the Terre Rouge site during last winter. It was a great site, the pipe structures on the inside are really special, it resembles a giant metallic spagetti sometimes. In a certain way it was quite an urbex photographer’s heaven so I put quite some images online:

Terre Rouge gallery

I also was a festival photographer for the Dranouter folk festival. A lot of nice groups and a great athmospere. I took a lot of foto’s that weekend but put only a small selection of them online.
Unfortunately the weather Gods were not that friendly and the last day it was raining so hard that a lot of us got stuck in the mud while trying to get home from the farmer fields that they turned into temporary press parkings. Not a fun 45 minutes...

Go directly to the Concerts gallery

Put some images online from the Cemetery in Maastricht, Netherlands.

Go directly to the Cemetery gallery

This year I was festival photographer for Dranouter aan Zee.
Dranouter is a folkfestival with internation allure, it features some great names from domestic as well as foreign artists. It is the little brother of the original Dranouter festival in... Dranouter.
This year Marianne Faithful chose Dranouter to be the first show of her new European Tour. She was scheduled as the final artist on the last day. But you’ll recognize many others as well: Milo, Flip Kowlier, Gabriel Rios, Luc de Vos,...

Although the festival took place a few months ago I finaly found the time to put the images on my own website.

The gallery features a smaller selection of images can be found in my Concerts Gallery.

Yes!
Another urbex update: visited Steel plant Forges de Clabecq. Half of this factory is now ready for demolition, part of it is already gone as you will notice from some images. This plant was not abandoned that long ago. There is still electricity and running water at some locations!

Check out the gallery.

During the winter of 2007 I went to some trainspotting if you like. Well not really, it was more a photographic piece on a railway bridge in the neighborhood. It’s an all steel structure bridge and I like the retro look it has with the iron bolds and all.
I returned that week to do some night scenes as well.

I updated the pics in the existing Varia > Railway Gallery

Below are some examples:

I took these images on a trip to Duisburg somewhere beginning 2008. Finally I’ve put them online. Forgot I had these lying around.

Go to the gallery

Updated the Harbor Antwerp images in the varia section with some Dusk Till Dawn images of the harbor industry.

Go directly to the gallery

I know some have been waiting for this, so appologies for the delay!
I’ve put a selection up which you can find here in the Concerts section.

I don’t know the name of this place. We passed by it while visiting the Chateau Heers mentioned below.
It was definitely not empty and there was a dog barking behind the doors of one of the adjacent buildings, a point at which I decided probably not to attempt to go in. Well urbex is all good and well, but breaking and entering is another thing... so just some impressions of the outside of the place which I added to the Heers gallery. [didn’t feel it was enough to warrant it’s own gallery]

Chateau Heers Gallery

Some time ago we went to Blankenberge for a weekend. While my wife was attending a congres, I took the time to take some scenery snapshots of the beach very early in the morning. It wasn’t summertime and at 9am there is not much action going on yet.

Here you see an image of the Pier, it’s renovated some years ago. The original construction dates back from 1894 and the idea of came over the canal from GB. In Brittain the art of building piers for fun and leasure had become a real expertise. Before that piers were mainly build to aid in unloading ships that were too big to approach the docks.
The Germans burned it down during the WWOI. In 1933 it was rebuild and all was well until “rot” was discovered in the concrete and the needed renovation started in 1999. The hit from the purple rain prince, hence my choice of colour layering... No not really

Go to the gallery

Another one I had lying in the closet...
Some months ago I was looking for a castle in decay, it was also aired on TV for the program Jambers a while back. The owners still live there. Sad story actually: about a wealthy family gone bankrupt. Problems started for them back during one [or both] of the WWO’s and the Germans confiscated most of their properties back in Poland.

Found the castle and also met the inhabitants! They were friendly enough to let us in and take some pictures but only in the courtyard. I did take some pictures from inside a hallway but actually they were pretty crappy so I didn’t put them online. Not many pictures then and mostly from the outside. Besides the front port, you can’t get in... Piss ‘em off and they’ll sure call the cops!

Some impressions though in the gallery.

After some radio silence, I thought this would be an appropriate update: an empty radio station from the early 1920’s in Holland also known as Radio Kootwijk.
Unfortunately I was not able to take any pictures from the inside, although that probably would be worthwile... The outside however also provided a nice view. Completely located in the middle of nowhere. Not many pictures, but nice ones from the main tower IMO.

Go to the gallery.

I reorganised the nature section completely and threw away some pictures, added some other.
You can find some new additions of a winter scenery shoot in Forests of Grobbendonk.
Made during the last winter period in the neighborhood. Everything was covered with thin ice and the lighting was beautiful.

I'm updating a lot of pages on the site.

- New design on several pages: removed some text here and there and created something more visually simple.
- Added a simple guestbook page.
- Some new links were added.
- Experimenting with a new gallery layout which is more dynamic and features scroll wheel and keyboard navigation [you can always give me some feedback on these]
- ...

Finally after a very long wait I have put the pictures of the cemeteries online.

Yes, some images I made some time ago. Decided to upload them to the Nature section.
One of them is made in Grobbendonk and looks a lot like a Cambodian ricefield

On 18 and 19th of May 2007 Apropo organised its yearly concert. All students and teachers take part in this two day concert to give the best of themselves. In the late night after the concert ended several jam sessions were held by a lot of talented musicians who volunteered to to lighting, sound, stage...
During the 2 days I was on stage, back stage, front stage to photograph the concert.
I have selected a "Distillers Edition" of those pictures in the Apropo 2007 gallery.

Amazing, at last a new update. I managed to find some time to put this tidbit online. We visited Baviere a while ago, can't exactly remember the date but it was a sunny afternoon for sure [as you will see in the pictures]. We were let in by the friendly people living there and we had company from their dog all the time. You see him in one of the images. I was always afraid he would lift his leg against my tripod

Baviere Hospital

It's a cemetery already visited several times by other urbexers and afficionado's of the genre. It was a real pleasure taking pictures here because of the serene atmosphere there. The light on one side of this long row of forgotten automobile dreams is filtered through tall pine trees which give the lighting a specific photographic quality. Furthermore it's quiet and calm and I also have no idea if there is an owner of this place. Probably there is, I don't think we have much "unclaimed" land here in Belgium. But considering its location on top of a slope surrounded by trees and bushes it might very well be there still for years and years to come.

Car Graveyard Chatillon

On my first trip over there my friend Tom accompanied me. Since he is living in Berlin, it was one of those rare occasions when the man was in Belgium. I have also put his pictures online, you can find them in "graveyard 5 by Tom".

When on a short vacation in Brittany France, I passed by the site of Etel where a few old shipwrecks are lying alongside the shore of the river. I believe many photographers who know about the place have visited already because it sure allows for some fantastic images. For this session I opted mostly for the black and white variants because of artistical beauty with the subject.

Etel Boat Graveyard