For ten years, photographer Luke Joyce has been exploring some of the world’s most forbidden places.
He has been documenting the slow decay of power plants, asylums and manor houses shut off from the outside world by barbed wire, barriers and fences. He has slipped through a gap in the wall, an open window or collapsing doorway to capture the reality within.
These are buildings that have almost always been hidden from the public gaze whether by choice or state of repair. For Luke, 31, from Exeter, poking about in abandoned buildings pulls on a thread which was first weaved in childhood.
“It is about the urge to go into that creepy house that’s been left derelict for years,” he said. “I have always had that mentality, some people grow out of that but I found that photography re-ignited that love of exploration.
“It intrigues me these creepy historic houses and structures that have been forgotten by society, I want to see them before they disappear entirely.”
Luke grew up in South Devon and is a former student at Teign School in Kingsteignton.
He is a portrait photographer by trade and is now holding his first solo exhibition called Exploring the Expired at Poltimore House, Exeter, from September 27-30.
In fact, the Grade II-listed historic house and estate, featured on the BBC’s Restoration series with Griff Rhys Jones, was the first subject of Luke’s urban exploration.
He said: “It is so strange to think of it now, but I remember the chap that I was with opened a door and then the alarm went off. We scarpered.”
Luke was one of the earliest exponents of Urbex which has since attracted thousands of copycats.
Since that first encounter, Luke has visited hundreds of locations across the UK, Europe and as far afield as New Zealand.
Luke often travels with a band of other Urbex photographers, all of whom have day jobs and are not deterred by the ‘keep out’ signs that stop most of us in our tracks.
Luke said: “ I’m not an adrenalin junkie. A lot of planning goes into it. It’s a bit geeky really. One of us even wears tweed,” he laughs.
But rule-breaking is part of the game. “There is an Urbex motto which says: ‘Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints,’ and that is at the heart of what we do,” he says. “We’re not breaking in or thieving. But if people really do care enough about these buildings they should secure them properly, but if I find an open window I’ll go in.
“I can understand that this may not show respect for the rules but I have deeper respect for the buildings, I don’t want to take anything from them or disturb them.”
But explaining that to armed police officers has become an occupational hazard, admits Luke, particularly during a recent trip to Belgium which seemed jinxed from the start when the sat-nav blew up on day one.
It got worse when the group of five found themselves outnumbered by police while taking photographs in “the belly of the beast” – a 200-metre diametre cooling tower at a disused power plant known only as XL.
Luke explained how the group managed to escape over two perimeter fences before reaching their car parked in an access road.
“We jumped in and as we pulled away I knew there was something wrong. I got out and had a look and just as I was about to say, ‘we’ve got a flat’, we were surrounded by two police vans and a cop car.
“I said to an officer: ‘Did you do that?’
He looked at me blankly and said ‘yes’,
I replied: “Do you have a pump?,
He looked at me and said: ‘no’.
“I explained, because I usually end up being the one that does the talking, that we had only been having a look. I managed to take the card out of the camera before he took it from me. That time, he took our details and we were told not to come back.”
After such a close shave, you may think they should have stayed away from their next scheduled stop – a derelict gynaecologist’s house.
But a stroke of luck meant that their second encounter of the day with the law ended neatly.
“It was Sunday and the paperwork from our earlier run-in hadn’t been processed. We apologised, promised we wouldn’t do it again and left.”
Luke acknowledges that some may find his methods questionable, but he claims the ends justify the means.
He said: “It is not random or reckless. I think it is really important to capture these places, so everyone can see inside them, to appreciate how beautiful they are and to recognise the history there. Who says it’s all right to fence them off and say ‘that’s not relevant any more’?
“I see it that as soon as you step over the threshold, you leave the safety of the outside world behind. You have to suspend that while you are there and realise the decisions you make are your own.”
The exhibition features 300 images of locations, including a deserted asylum, a dilapidated Nato radar base, an abandoned Wild West theme park and huge industrial zones.
“I want to create much more than just a photographic exhibition but more of a journey into the past to see places frozen in time,” he says.
The exhibition is set in different zones in Poltimore House. He said: “Everything here is off limits and viewers get the chance to see things others might not want them to see, or just places forgotten and left to be reclaimed by nature.”
Visit www.donotresuscitate.co.uk