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Sunday 23 June 2013

Smile on Faces, Blackburn - June 2013

A wet and windy day and we found ourselves in the wonderful town of Blackburn. I say we, myself and the Urban Spaceman - both wearing our new shiny leather boots, courtesy of my "pen friends" at Palladium Boots.

Nestled in the red light area of Blackburn, this former nursery had closed in 2007 following an Ofsted report that advised children "would be or may be exposed to harm". Add to that a local bail hostel next door and the rest is history as they say.

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Didn't look bad at first glance.....

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and more

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and more spooky stairs (must of scared the kids shitless this place)

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until we got to the party room

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Sadly, a dark, derp of building, with signs of fire bugs and metal fairies, it is lacking anything of any interest.

 View my photos at bighugelabs.com

Tuesday 18 June 2013

Bankside Mill, Manchester - June 2013

A mooch with Jdub, who found this place as he went twitching one fine day or whatever he does with that rather large lens of his.

Can't find much on this place history wise, a rather ugly metal clad stone mill, previously occupied by a sewing thread manufacturer now awaiting demolition for housing.

On with the pics, for what they are worth.

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 Deceptively large open space of nothingness, with odd bits of memories of happier times scattered around the place. The metal fairies had been in,  but as empty buildings awaiting demolition go it wasn't in bad condition to be honest.

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We killed a hour, it had nothing of interest for me and sadly my snaps sadly reflect my lack of enthusiasm for the place, but it was on the doorstep.


 View my photos at bighugelabs.com







Tuesday 4 June 2013

Camelot Theme Park - June 2013

Back to some Urbex, its been a few weeks since we had a good little mooch.

We all like a closed theme park, something unnatural about a closed theme park, a bit too quiet and no smell of overpriced popcorn and hotdogs - its all a bit "Scooby Doo".

Sadly for us in the UK we don't have that many open theme parks, never mind closed -  but this one used to be the magical word of Camelot was just round the corner from me - so off we shot in the Mystery Machine.

Being just round the corner the I'd visited Camelot many times over the years with the kids, a small theme park based around the legend of King Arthur (I suspect you had worked that one out for yourself to be honest) it was a good day out for those on a budget - but it just needed to be a little bigger with a few more rides I personally thought to myself on those hot summers days many years ago.

The park opened in 1983 and finally closed to the public at the end of 2012.

Visited with Urban Spaceman and the Tin Dog on a strangely warm summers day, given the site is about 140 acres we thought we would do some homework and refresh our memories of the site pre-visit.

With our reconnaissance consisting of an episode of Sooty found on Youtube, a vague glance at some old Camelot maps found on a theme park website off we shot - scroll along to about 9 minutes 30 to glance an idea of the place in its former glory. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY_Z30TY_xQ


 Camelot Theme Park - closed
Camelot Theme Park - closed
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Camelot Theme Park - closed
Camelot Theme Park - closed

It was off to the Dragon Flyer, possibly the worlds only diesel powered coaster in the world.

- I should add the place was awash with fellow photographers of derp

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Camelot Theme Park - closed
 Camelot Theme Park - closed
End of the line - Camelot Theme Park - 2013

Then a wander round the Dungeons of Doom, I've always wanted a wander round a ghost train and sadly this one was just a little bit poo.
 Camelot Theme Park - closed
  Camelot Theme Park - closed

Eerie sounds from the roller coaster Knightmare, the structure creaking as the sun heated up the structure.

Camelot Theme Park - closed
Camelot Theme Park - closed
Camelot Theme Park - closed
Camelot Theme Park - closed

All in all, a cracking few hours, sad to see this place go myself and in a few weeks it will be gone.

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We then jumped in the plane at a later date and well this was the result


View my photos at bighugelabs.com

Copyright 2013 Fragglehunter /Sleepyg

Do not reproduce in whole or part without permission of the Copyright holder.







Monday 3 June 2013

Photo theft - taking on the big boys

So your looking at my blog or Flickr and you like my photographs ? Well I hope you do, but you wouldn't want to steal them would you ?? Surely not ???

Now I freely admit that I'm not the best photographer in the world, hopefully not the worst, but in May of this year it came to my attention that a certain global sports company had taken upon itself to use some of my pictures via Twitter, Facebook and their company blog.

My main first issue was my photographs had been ripped off and placed on this companies own servers, the second the cost to myself of taking the pictures, thirdly the time and effort I put in to take them - simply to have them ripped off without being consulted or asked. I could go on and on and on but simply put it just should not have happened.

So before you do steal/use or whatever you want to call it, ask me, as I stated to the American lawyers "I am not an ogre, but I just won't be stepped on".

An out of court settlement was made to myself running into thousands of dollars, including a payment to a cancer charity of my choice, so as I have previously stated, please, please, please don't steal my pictures - ask.

I have regularly allowed my photos to be used with and without charge, sometimes with a small donation to a local cancer charity.

So if you want to get in contact, simply click on a picture and send me a message thru Flickr - it avoids the car crash that ensues after the theft of my hard work.

Thank you for reading - just message me.


 View my photos at bighugelabs.com


Urbex in the News

Every so often I post few links of stuff that turns up in press and the odd website link I stumble across.

First off The Daily Mail get all excited with "Hitler's Hospital" with some nice pictures, but sadly The Daily Mail is still flirting with HDR that makes my efforts look amazing.

It's a wtf !??! from Curbed

And back to The Daily Mail again with some fresh and not so fresh pictures of abandoned places

- What does interest me are the pictures from Buzludzha, as we have a forthcoming trip planned and the old Bulgarian Communist looks amazing.