I am completely blown away by these haunting, moody, gorgeous photos of abandoned places by German photographer Nicole Staniewski. How she gets access to so many fantastic abandoned buildings I can’t imagine, but I wish I could tag along.

Going through her photos, I had a devil of a time choosing just a few to include in this post. They’re all so weirdly magical. Her use of light and her framing and, I’m sure in some cases, her staging of objects in those frames are truly masterful. Every photo seems to suggest its own horror story.

“My passion is the photographic documentation and artistic representation of forgotten, abandoned and dilapidated places and buildings, so-called lost places. . . I enjoy the stillness, the presence in such places and especially the light that emerges in these sites incomparable moods. For the origin of the photos I use only the existing light and never use flash, so as not to distort the mood.” -Nicole Staniewski

DISCLAIMER: Since her website is entirely in German, just one of the hundreds of languages I don’t speak, I ran her bio through Google Translate, which also claimed she wrote the following: “Due to its unique for me interplay of light and shadow the ailing places reveal their charm and leave as their former splendor and beauty guess even show their other beauty that can not also reduce the decay.” So either she’s suffered a head injury or Google Translate has.

Her work is carried in a number of galleries in Germany and Belgium, but she doesn’t seem to have made it to the U.S. yet. In the meantime, there’s a very satisfying slideshow on her website.

http://www.wandelwelten-photografie.de/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/86396644@N06/