Meet Daan Oude Elferink

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Self-taught Dutch photographer Daan Oude Elferink (1978) travels the world to explore and capture the beauty of abandoned, forbidden and decayed places. He captures the beauty of buildings and objects all over the world that are slowly decaying with time – accordingly becoming more beautiful but also more dangerous. The adventure to capture the shot is as important as the photo itself. Climbing rooftops, crawling through sewers, avoiding security guards and never knowing how safe it really is. I try to always capture that tension and excitement in my work – Elferink says.

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Elferink’s undertaking is no easy feat considering it’s both perilous, dangerous and not to mention illega to venture into many of these ghostly lots. The 37-year-old photographer has been chased by dogs, junkies, and robbers, stared down by police gun barrels, and victimized by unreliable, rickety floors.

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Elferink relies solely upon natural light, using long double and triple exposures to shoot his decaying hulks as the buildings are completely deserted and without electricity. One of his favorite images, “Heavenly Light,” demanded three separate journeys to Poland to achieve the lighting he wanted.

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Incredibly, these surreal scenes are photographed just as they are; Elferink doesn’t stage or manipulate them in any way. “In my opinion,” he says, “breaking a spider web [is] already vandalism.” There’s meaning in capturing the chaotic decay exactly as it exists. “It tells a story,” he says.

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His limited edition artworks have been exhibited in art galleries and art fairs in more than 20 cities all over the world, including Miami (USA), New York (USA), Paris (France), London (UK), Stockholm (Sweden), Bangalore (India), Singapore and obviously his home country The Netherlands.

Daanoe has released three books: Urban Exploration & Photography (2010-2012), Gift of Time (2012-2014) and Touched by Time (2014-2016). Touched by Time won the “European Book Price of the year 2017” awarded by the Federation of European Photographers in Sicily.

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Source

Daanoe.com, The Week