Micro Location: Graffiti • A journey threw my mind

The artist collective responsible perhaps?

Anglicisms

Flipper – Pinball machine

Oldtimer – Classic car

Handy – Mobile phone

The German language is full of pseudo-Anglicisms and the expression “lost place” is another of them.

On first hearing the term it’s difficult to even know what could be meant by it, because how could a location ever become lost?

It was there one minute, and gone the next, because it went walkabout and couldn’t find its way back?

Naturally not, it’s just another of those weird Dinglish expressions so loved by Germans and yet so confusing to all other English speakers.

These locations are not “lost” in the conventional sense, they are abandoned, they have just been forgotten about, frozen in time they are relics of a bygone era, modern ruins, lost only to the collective consciousness.

Because the passage of time has a corrosive effect on appearance, adding ever more layers of texture, abandoned locations often provide a convenient source of easy subjects for the amateur photographer.

But actually, although every town and city has its fair share of dangerous-looking abandoned buildings, you don’t necessarily have to risk life and limb and break numerous trespassing laws to practice the art of Urbexing – Urban Exploring.

A concrete box, slowly enveloped by the surrounding woodland

Not all “lost places” are lost, they just look it because of their out of the way location, and their perceived lack of purpose, and have therefore become a magnet to any number of youths armed with dozens of cans of brightly coloured spray paint.

Situated in the Tiergarten, Berlin’s central city park on the Großer Weg (the great way), this is one such micro-location, heavily graffitied it resembles an abandoned café, whereas it’s actually part of the ventilation system for the underground metro system below, but it still provides enough urban texture for an interesting afternoon’s photography.