The beauty is in the eye of the beholder

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The last aid belongs to the picture series of abandoned objects scattered around the whole Slovakia. This particular one is from the already non-existent hospital in the very center of Bratislava and it’s former dining room.

Some time ago, I had been searching for all possible URBEX sources related to the buildings like this. It was rather fascinating to see the institutions, once full of people and glory, left to rust and rot. The mixture of the beauty and the sadness invoked a lot of virtual stories in my head starting to be happen just after arriving at the place itself. Anyway, to find the way into this hospital was not as easy at that time as it seems today and it took me almost one year to work it out. The way in was through a lattice with one segment missing, leaving just enough space for a belly of my size and a backpack with the photography equipment. Behind the lattice, there was a corridor ending up at the the flooded basement with chairs coming out of the water like small islands. Having passed this stinky pool, one was just at the main entrance.

One of the stories was about a crazy doctor helping his patient to find way out of the hospital. For this reason, I bought a doctor suit and a stethoscope. And once, as my oldest daughter asked me to join me on my almost usual Saturday’s trip to the hospital, I knew the right time for this story just arrived. We smoothly passed the lattice and started to crawl the chairs. But being half way to the main entrance in the flooded hall, she got a culture shock from the underground environment. Standing there on a chair, she started to shake badly and became rather green. I immediately offered her to return, but she refused. Finally, she regained the whole consciousness and we were able to move on. Nothing else stood in the way for The last aid photograph. Moreover, another picture of the abandoned objects series was shot – The drug. This series got the 3rd place of the jury at the Foto v záhrade competition and the Genius loci Grand Prize 2014 for fine art photography. It also was published in the Slovak Art Magazine SAM and lately, in the Photographize magazine.

From the technical point of view, the post-processing took me quite a while to get it done to the final shape. At that time, I was new to Photoshop and I had to spent a lot of time looking at YouTube in order to handle layers and masks properly. But if you have an idea what you want to achieve, nothing is impossible. Nevertheless, the next image depicts, how far away can the source be from the destination.

The Last Aid

If you are interested in more tales, click on one of the following two pictures:

There are more pictures from the Gone series to be seen here: