About

My name is Elle and I am a twenty one year old photographer based near the city of Milton Keynes in the south east of England.

Urban exploration has now been a hobby of mine for some years, when it was often condemned as ‘time wasting’ or ‘messing about’ by those who didn’t appreciate my interest in snooping around old buildings and for lack of a more exact terminology.

Thankfully it has since been re-labelled by various online communities all sharing the same interests as ‘urban exploring’ or ‘urbex’.

I began photography two years ago when I was forced into loading for the first time a reel of film into a camera as part of a photographic degree at university.

My first reel was a disaster and I was immediately captivated by the magic and complexities of photographic processing and delights that the darkroom had to offer with its overpowering scent of chemicals and permanent sound of running water emanating from the giant water tanks.

I am now using a digital Canon 30D with wide angle equivalent to a 16-28mm for most urban photography. I enjoy exploring both alone and with other people depending of the type of location and length of exploration.

Disclaimer

Abandonements can be extremely dangerous from a structural point of view with frequent risks and exposure to lead based paints, asbestos, collapsing floorboards, not to mention the possibility of encountering squatters, needle-heads, hostile vandals or thieves. Last summer whilst photographing an old piano factory nearby to my home late one evening I became entangled whist climbing down from a flat roof between two walls and opened my back up on a scrap metal heap resulting in a hideous 22 stitches (27 if you count the soluble ones).

So exploring can be hazardous if you choose to do something unreasonably dangerous or are simply unlucky.

The priority of this site and its contents is to document these remaining structures and in doing so great care is always taken to never disturb any wildlife, damage or litter any property whilst out exploring.

Contamination Zone retains all rights to all content and images found on this website; if you wish to make a print purchase or use any of the cited material please feel free to contact me.

And remember; enter at your own risk, that’s the fun in it.