) I am a 23-year-old photographer from Ohio.



At the age of 16, I started to explore variousareas around where I lived and quickly grew to love what I would find onexplorations, whether it was through nature or abandoned structures. I shortlyafter began to capture the world around me, the things I see and how I seethem. I wanted to share these beautiful places with people as well as I can,and through a lens was how I could shape these visions.





Through all that I have loved to photograph,around the age of 16 I became intriguedwith urban exploration upon the discovery of an abandoned farm house in thecity of Kirtland, OH. My mother, step-father and myself were on our way to mysisters house when I had spotted it and asked if we could pull into the driveway to check it out. The way the roof was caved in, covered in bright mossattracted my attention. It was beautiful. We pulled into the drive and walkedfrom our car up to the entrance of this falling structure.





Upon entrance through the tall, white, wooden swinging doors I wasinstantly brought to the realization that this was someone's past; the historyof lives we never even knew, but for some reason I found to be so interesting.People were here once, living and working and now they are gone while thecollapsing ruins remain a place that is looked past by so many. We walkedthrough the falling foundation, across tilted floors which had been shifted bythe Earth, examining this space that had once been full of life. This momentfelt so peaceful. From that day on, whenever I would see a decayed structurethat had been left to fall, I would find a way to explore it. Shortly after in2009 I had learned this was actually known as urban exploration and becamehooked on learning the history of the places I would explore.



I was fascinated by the way moss and ivy couldwrap itself up a man-built machine or around the outside of a building, crawlingin through its windows, traveling up an intricate Victorian stairwell as itfell into a corridor. I loved the way a torn apart hallway would lead you to anopen room where the shattered remains of a window lie in pieces on the groundwhile the outside light poured into a room of colorful, peeling walls lightingup the silence surrounding you. It opened my eyes to a whole normally unseenpart of life and the world around me.



This is something that will not be hereforever, but was alive at one point and is now just a memory which could soonbecome yet another memory lingering upon the soil or street corner where itonce stood. I thought to myself 'this is what I need to document and share withthe world.'