The following has a selection of the photos that myself, and Rosie Hall took...with the help of the brilliant Georgia Paige England as our model. If you think these look eerie...you want to try being there, in the dark, in a disused mortuary.
The journey to the mortuary was one of mixed feelings. I was driving, and I had Rosie, and her sister Georgia in the car. We were all getting to know one another as we had only just met. It was my idea to have a group of photographers do a collective shoot of long exposures in an authentic location for Halloween. I made the call on a Facebook group called Long Exposure Photography, and Rosie was one of the first to show an interest. We were meeting a young chap called Matt Springs at the site, as he knew of the location we were going to, which was a help as we knew the place was derelict, and access in probably all grown over. Anyway...the drive was that of excited anticipation, nerves...and lots of talking. Before we knew it, we were there. The hour and a half that it took to get there just flew by. We had to wait a bit for Matt to arrive, we were a bit too scared to check out where the access was...we're girls, we're allowed to be scared.
Once Matt turned up, we soon found ourselves squeezing on our hands and knees in through the access point, the floor was wet, and we could hear water dripping from the ceiling nearby. The place was in absolute darkness, no light anywhere. One of the first rooms that greets us was the mortuary itself. No marble slabs on the tables, they had already been removed as the place is slowly getting ready to be demolished. Imagine how you would feel when you see the tables right in front of you.
Once we had a look around of the building, so that we could get our bearings and find a safe place to leave our photo gear and props, it was obvious this building was proceeding rapidly towards the advance stages of decay. Paint was peeling off the walls, the ceiling had begun to fall in, the floors were sopping wet, with puddles...and that sound of water dripping from the ceilings, with the accompanying echo is something straight out of a horror film. One thing that will always stay with me though is the smell. It wasn't a smell of bodies (although I don't know what that smells like)...it was the smell of the rotting of the building, it had died...the walls, the plasterboard, the wood...everything had begun breaking down, and the stench of that clung to me. The entire fabric of the building was pungent, and dirty. The only signs of obvious life was us, and some of the ivy that had found a way in.
And so this blog is primarily about photos, I just wanted to give you a description of the building, an account of what it was like in there both physically and atmospherically. I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking. But on a final note...both Rosie and myself brought something back with us. Something unseen, blatant...and no longer of this world. We think it's gone now. At least we hope so.
Both Rosie, and myself have photo pages on Facebook. If you would like to see more of Rosie's work then visit Rosie Hall Photography
I too have a photography page on Facebook, which is Photo Sync - S.Singleton Images. My website is www.photosync.co.uk
We are both photographers, and if you like what you have seen so far, and would be interested in us doing a dual commission then please feel free to contact us on our Facebook pages.
I would also like to thank Georgia Paige England for being such a star, she had no problem going into the body freezers for us, or redoing shoots while we were setting up our cameras. Thank you Georgia.
We didn't disrespect this building in anyway, we left it as we found it, and I am not obliged to give the location of this place since I think it's sometimes best to have a little mystery in life.
All photos are owned by me Suzanne Singleton, and Rosie Hall.
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