106 Comments Posted by keith

Oh, I agree. certainly addictive. I missed my train to London because I kept saying "Eh, just one more gallery... Oh, another one... Hmm, I still have time for another... One more..." You really should put a warning lable on the front page. You know, like on cigarette packs.

I sympathise with your distraction. If i were in a room with so many fun things to play with, the whole photography thing would definitely become an after-thought. Then again, you could give me a slinky and I'd be distracted for hours. I still believe I was a ferret in a past life! :o(

YAY! No ugly, rotting, awful, disgusting drop ceiling!

It looks like an angel. :oS

The Little Vine that Could! ^__^

There really is plenty of stuff online and in various publications you could study. No need to dig through this stuff. A brief google search will turn up tonnes of case files, diaries, all sorts of things by, and about, people with mental disorders released for public study. Poetry written by schizophrenics is particularly fascinating. Sometimes, they make me jealous because they make absolutely amazing connections through metaphors and such that I would have never thought of. Then again, all creative people seem to be a bit off. Myself included. 8o}

He's so going to eat that butterfly right in front of the little girl.

Ah, yes, my abnormal psychology professor would often go into little rants about homosexuality being included in versions of DSM well into... what was it? 1980's? Or, was it the 60's. The only thing that really sticks in my mind about that class is the professor going on a really long rant about how it doesn't take a genius to know what medicine to prescribe and that psychologists should be able to do so and the only reason they can't is because of the psychiatrists wanting to keep all the big money to themselves. I always had the suspicion that he was just jealous that he never went to medical school. He was a good guy though. It was a fun class and I still occasionally watch the CD-Rom that came with the textbook that had a bunch of videos of people with various disorders. The schizophrenics are absolutely fascinating to observe.

The trick to escaping them is to puff yourself up as much as possible without being noticeable. Anyway, that's what a brief internet search told me. Apparently it works with most restraints as well. Hence, how the escape artists do it, I guess. I suppose the theory behind it is that, once you deflate, you'll have a lot of slack to work with. Escape artists kind of interest me, so I actually wouldn't mind give it a try. Hmm...

Heh, whoops!

Motts, you are absolutely my hero. Great photographs, but, perhaps more importantly, great locations. Good God man, you strike gold every where you go, it seems. You're Spiderman, right? You must have superpowers of some sort. Jails, hospitals, you're damn near everywhere, and half of these places are practically untouched when you get there. I tried not to say it, but it must be said... I <3 you.

Ah, I was talking with people who did urbex in some really horrible inner city neighborhoods. They actually found a prison like this (maybe even the same one!) and went in. The nice thing is all the vandals tend to pass it over because they are too terrified of the people inside, but these guys that went in said the drifters who lived there were amazingly nice. They couldn't believe that anyone would actually want to explore the place so they were happy to show the group around. I don't know, my experience with drifters and addicts have always been positive as well. Sometimes you have to hand over a little money to get them off your back, but for the most part they just go about their business without paying you any attention.

I don't usually go for warm colours. Blues and greens tend to be more my thing, but I think this photograph just converted me.

The thing that makes me sad about this shot actually is that our prisons are filling with non-violent drug offenders. What's wrong with tha, you ask? Well, for every kid who goes to prison just because he got caught with an ounce of marijuana, a rapist, murderer, robber, or some other sort of felon will be let out early on parole to clear up space. It seems so silly that we fight drugs harder than we fight violence. Oy, but that's your libertarian public service anouncement for today. :oS

Hmm, I'd love to stalk the hallways hunting them down. Anyone think it's worth a 3 hour drive? No seriously, I wouldn't hurt them, but that doesn't mean I couldn't still have fun. It's a miracle the tricks you can learn from an old book of magic tricks and a psychology textbook. It also helps that my grandmother, through her long nursing career, has stolen huge amounts of supplies from every hospital she worked at. Even bloody bandages. She's weird like that. Before the disposable stuff came out she'd take any that she couldn't wash the stains out of. "They were just going to throw them away!" she'd say with an annoyed shake of her head. Ah, her house is essentially one giant prop storage facility for a horror movie. Everything from stained bandages to discarded surgical tools. She's even got big barrels of nastiness in her basement. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but it appears to be some sort of powerful disinfectant. It's slowly eating it's way out of the metal barrels. I suspect when it escapes it's going to take over the whole house.