LTV Artist Spotlight
What is your home city?
Who Are You?
NYC. Born, raised, forged in the fires of the hell years.
I’ve been exploring since before exploring was called exploring, and that makes it a little weird honestly. Day to day I’m just a humble guy doing my thing. On those nights I get out though…I’m a tunnel god. I’m a guy that did rooftops before anyone thought to do rooftops. The weird is knowing in some way I inspired a load of people to do this, yet also weird that there are those who have never heard of me. The other weird is when I hear people act like they invented the exploring game when they definitely were not there and have no receipts. There was a time I could count on one hand the number of people on this planet calling themselves urban explorers. That’s just reality. It’s a history a few people should learn a little about. That said, I’m glad this pastime has exploded in popularity over the last two decades.
What is a memory attached to one of the images shared?
This was the second time I explored the new Second Ave Subway while it was still under construction. I made a game of finding new ways in the few times I went. SAS, ESA and 7X were just so amazing to see, after decades of no new construction. I more or less saw the whole system already, and these new tunnels were like doing lines of cocaine at 3AM after you’ve already been up 24 hours straight on an all city rampage.
What’s in your bag?
Depends on the trip.
Canon R, Sigma 14-24, Canon L 70-200 are always in the bag, along with the Ski Mask. To me it’s a symbol of resistance. A homage to the IRA and similar freedom fighters around the globe.
I’ve been doing a lot of film again-using the camera I learned on decades ago: a Canon AE-1. Usually Old Fuji, expired T-Max 3200, Lomo and svema films. I want the film shots to be weird.
Favorite tool for funsies: Bolt cutter. Nothing beats slicing a nice big fence hole. It’s like giving them the finger if they find it.
Did photography lead you to exploring or vice versa?
Why do you explore?
They were independent of each other, but came together nicely. Explorers back then rarely took photos. Gear was clunky, film cost money, time and skill to use. Pre-internet I’d show people print photos of spots - which got more people interested in going. Then the web came along, we could throw photos on our own websites and everything blew up from there.
Why doesn’t everyone explore?
It’s as natural as breathing. Lines are meant to be crossed, because the vast majority of the time, those lines shouldn’t exist.