Urban exploration: 20 eerie photos of abandoned worlds

After exploring the world for his dream photography project, David de Rueda now has a rather disturbing collection of photographs. Here, he shares 20 pictures he took while exploring abandoned urban spaces.

An abandoned radar station in the mountains of Italy
A former concert hall in Tallinn, Estonia
A disused experimental power facility near Moscow, Russia
An old factory built during, St Petersburg, Russia
A former hospital in Pripyat, Ukraine
The waiting room in the remains of the Pripyat hospital, Ukraine
The city of Pripyat, Ukraine
Abandoned café in Pripyat, Ukraine
Old bus station, Pripyat, Ukraine
Sunrise from the top of Pripyat’s highest building, the Fujiyama
Inside the cooling tower of a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine
The famous Ferris wheel, Pripyat, Ukraine
An abandoned power plant near Budapest, Hungary
Inside the abandoned power plant near Budapest, Hungary
A derelict train graveyard, Budapest
Buzludzha monument in Bulgaria
The congress room at the Buzludzha monument, Bulgaria
A long-forgotten wreck of a Douglas DC-3 aircraft, Iceland
Two relics of the Soviet space race in a huge abandoned warehouse, Kazakhstan

“Nikon challenged me to create and complete my dream photography project, with my own imagination being the only restriction."

"[It] was an opportunity to challenge myself and push my urban exploration photography to another level. For me, the abandoned places of Europe’s recent past were an obvious choice. I see discovering the hidden side of such locations as a kind of modern archaeology that, when coupled with the artistry a photographer can bring, should capture the imaginations of many.”