In the heart of the city or on the outskirts, abandoned buildings the quest of urban explorers, to photography lovers. We have met with one of them.
Urbex or Urban Exploration, is very little known from the public, but it is very popular among amateur photographers or just curious people. Vincent Guilhamasse is one of them, this 19-year-old art student has been practicing urbex for a year. First passionate of landscape photography, his love for the urbex photographie appeared to him during his first city exploration.
« I like to position myself in the middle of a large empty and broken space, and to feel the beauty of the place, its beauty is in the evolution of its degradation, what makes them aesthetic is their graffiti and their history »
Urbex counts many groups of explorations, most of them are secret, Vincent him, created his own with other friends. Separated by studies, he pursuive his passion alone.
« some groups are really closed and autonomous, but you will always find people who share this passion on social networks and the internet »
An activity with its own codes
There are some rules in the urban explorers community, in Toulouse as anywhere else. First rule, always explore, never degrade, never leave a trace, the places must remain intact. Also some places, because they remained empty for a long time, can be dangerous. But the biggest rules of urban explorers community isn never to reveal the adres of the place they are exploring. Too many visits could alert the authorities and have the building permanently condemned. In Toulouse there are many points, more or less known. Old cafeterias, hospitals, or even old churches, Vincent almost explored them all. The pink city is rich in places of exploration
« These buildings are part of Toulouse heritage, destroy them, would be to erase part of its history »
Vincent’s first urbex was in an old cafeteria, this point is the best known of Toulouse urban explorateurs. The spiral staircase of this bulding, which fought the time, can be found easily in photo on social networks. But the favorite spot of Vincent remains the former bowling of Labège. He appreciates this building for its rooftop which gives an breathaking view on Labège.
A medium popularized by social networks
Urbex was launched by google video, it showled photographer specialized in this medium. But the biggest activity remains on Youtube, where many explorers post videos of their adventures. Some of them are now well known and influential, Vincent and many Urbex lovers are now inspired by these people, who participate activelyin making known the urbex.
