“So what are you up to this weekend Adam?”
“Well, I’ll be getting up in the middle of the night to meet about 30 other urban explorers to all dress up as Santa at an abandoned asylum of course…”
The premise was simple: everyone get on site under cover of darkness, meet at the agreed location, and wait for daylight for a few quick group shots before splitting off into smaller groups to explore before security started their first rounds. And blow me, it actually worked!
It was great to finally get to say hello in person to a few other explorers who I’d spoken to only on t’interwebz, and the morning was amazing fun.
For many more shots of this amazing place, together with a full history, have a gander at my previous report from a much longer visit.
Anyway, a few of the group photos, followed by some more shots of Sevs itself…
Gathering by the Water Tower
About £30k+ worth of DSLR kit, and a reindeer in a gimp mask. As you do…
Posing for the group shots…
Given the number of far superior cameras being used for the group shots I decided not to add mine to the fray, so here’s a great one taken by (and used with the kind permission of) Matthew Adams of Unexposed Exploration.
Naughty reindeer posing for her public…
Right, time to split off into smaller groups – a smaller group shot in one of the famous corridors…
This red chair is one of the very few items of furniture still remaining, so is a bit of classic shot on the UE scene…
Ah, another quintessential Sevs corridor – this is one of the longest.
Bad Santas…
This photo was taken by Richie Gowan, and used with his kind permission (all rights reserved).
And I’ll leave you with a couple more shots of those beautiful corridors.
At this point we got news from other explorers who had already been caught that police were on site assisting Michael, so we decided that it was probably a good idea to call it a day and leave. We broke cover and headed to the main gate, at which point the police car almost drove straight past us before seeing 3 Santas carrying tripods in his rear view mirror and slamming on his brakes! Happily the police officer was as decent and fair a chap as Michael – nice one sir, that’s the way to do your job – sensibly and with good humour. 🙂
Finally, a massive thanks to Matthew Adams of Unexposed Exploration for coming up with the idea and organising this event. Matthew also presented one of his limited edition prints (contact him via Facebook for prices and availability) to Michael as a Christmas present – of this stunning shot taken from the top of Severalls Water Tower.
As always, thanks for looking and please sign up to follow this blog if you’ve not done so already!
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