Johnny Joo

I absolutely love the work of American photographer Johnny Joo. Living in South Wales, we have an abundance of castle ruins in my local area and I like nothing better than wandering around, taking in the history and photographing them.

I stumbled across the work of Joo on Facebook and was immediately drawn to his images. Joo primarily photographs abandoned and decaying buildings being reclaimed by nature but he also posts a lot of landscape images too, which he captures on his urban exploration adventures. I actually gained permission and used one of Joo's images as inspiration for an assignment on my Photography 2: Landscape course last year. You can find that assignment write up here.

I am fascinated by Joo's technique of photographing these locations and the buildings he encounters as I cant imagine it being an easy task, and one a lot of photographers would not attempt to get.

The abandoned Pontiac Siverdome ©Johnny Joo Photography *

Joo's images are always colourful which contrasts the fact that most of the subjects are crumbling and decaying and I love how Joo always focuses on the emptiness of his subjects while still capturing the essence of the original use of the structures.

Following Joo on Instagram and Facebook gives me daily inspiration. Not only from the fabulous photographs he regularly posts but also his passion for what he does. As I said, it cant be easy to capture such great images while navigating around structures that could collapse at any minute and, as with most urban explorers, while attempting to not get caught but without people like Joo, we would not have such exceptional images of these beautiful places.

Find out more about Johnny Joo on his website at http://architecturalafterlife.com/ or at his Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/JohnnyJooPhotography?fref=ts

*image courtesy of Johnny Joo