Will Ellis has made a name for himself capturing images of derelict spaces around NYC. The Brooklyn-based photographer and founder of Abandoned NYC is also one of the featured artists in the Offset collection, where you’ll find a stunning selection of his inimitable interiors and still lifes. We caught up with the artist to ask about his locations, his inspiration, and his run-in with a phantom.
Tell us about these buildings. What makes them special to you?
More than anything, it’s the mystery that they hold for me. Most people’s first impulse when they see an abandoned building is to wonder what’s inside, and that’s how it started for me. I think of abandoned buildings as a kind of wilderness, where boundaries between the past and present, the built environment and the natural world, the familiar and the surreal, all start to break down, and that’s when things get interesting. There’s an authenticity to them that I don’t find on the manicured lawns of Central Park or the commercialized streets of Manhattan.
What do you try to capture with your photographs?
When light is slipping through cracks in a boarded-up window or reflected off overgrown exteriors, all sorts of interesting phenomenons play out, and it’s a pleasure to photograph. So, in addition to an interesting subject, I’m always looking for a particular quality of light that gives my pictures a kind of “gleam.” Architectural photography in general appeals to me because of its precision, but I also love the simplicity of using natural light and photographing the world as it actually is. There’s something very beautiful and pure about interacting with a space in that way.
How did you decide on abandoned buildings as a subject?
When I started this project, I was reading a lot of classic horror in the gothic tradition — Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood. What makes those stories so appealing is the atmosphere they create, and more often than not, they’re set in some decrepit, abandoned building, especially the old English ghost stories. So this was a way for me to find that eerie atmosphere in my own backyard. I walked into my first abandoned building on a whim, and from then on, I was hooked. It’s interesting to see that, just in the past few years, the internet has become saturated with images of abandoned buildings, leading to the term “ruin porn.” But the pleasure of ruins goes back thousands of years. It plays into this morbid curiosity that is within all of us — a fascination with death and decay that’s just a part of what makes us human.
Why is it important to remember places that have been largely forgotten?
Researching the history behind these places has kept me going after the initial sense of adventure waned a bit. Abandoned buildings have a knack for highlighting major changes that have taken place over history, and many of them fit into overarching trends that can tell you a lot about how a city like New York has transformed over the past century or so. Many of them played a significant role in New York’s industrial era, military history, or the age of institutionalization. So the project is almost archeological — a way of uncovering the city’s past.
Is there any particular image that has a story behind it you could share?
This image of the Hoosac Tunnel (above) has a pretty good story behind it. The tunnel is supposedly one of the most haunted places in Massachusetts, so of course I had to stop by during a camping trip up to the Berkshires. I’ve been to several supposedly haunted places without incident, and I definitely consider myself a skeptic, but as soon as I crossed the threshold into the tunnel, my camera started taking pictures by itself. The entire time I was inside, I was unable to gain control of the shutter, so I just positioned my tripod, set focus, stepped aside and waited for the camera to fire. In other words, a ghost took this picture.
Top image: Nature retaking an auditorium of an abandoned school by Will Ellis
Offset artists are visual storytellers with a deep passion for their craft. Images in the Offset collection are gathered from world-class and award-winning assignment photographers, illustrators, and agencies, with a focus on unique content with narrative, authentic, and sophisticated qualities.
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