Because so many people had left, everything began to fall into disrepair. That's when I started visiting abandoned buildings, sometimes with friends and sometimes on my own. Then much later, when a friend gave me a digital camera, I was able to capture the beauty of these old places.
From BBC News Magazine:
Christian Richter spent his teens exploring abandoned buildings in what was then Communist East Germany. As an adult he's still doing it, but now he takes a camera to capture the advancing decay of their interiors.
My childhood was surrounded by the industrial, crumbling buildings of the former German Democratic Republic - lots of ramshackle structures, and power stations.
I was 14 years old when the Berlin Wall came down. It was a huge change for us. People didn't know how it would all turn out. It was very exciting - the start of something new. At first we visited the West a lot just to see what it was like, and although quite a few people moved away, I stayed.
Because so many people had left, everything began to fall into disrepair. That's when I started visiting abandoned buildings, sometimes with friends and sometimes on my own. Then much later, when a friend gave me a digital camera, I was able to capture the beauty of these old places.
For the complete text and an amazing gallery of photos, link below:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34575019