About ASKA

Medium format action at Beckomberga Asylum's gardens. Photo © Su-Chin Pang 2009

ASKA is the slowly growing collection of photographs from more or less abandoned places by me, Björn Sahlberg. Most locations are within a day's trip from Stockholm, Sweden, which is my physical home base.

So why seek these places and spend days photographing them? An initial inspiration was the book Journal of a Ghost Hunter by Simon Marsden that I received for Christmas in 1994. Up until then my view on photography in general was something of a substitute for "real" art like painting or drawing (can you imagine) but that book had me thinking differently. Then there was also the environs of fantasy literature, comic books, Warhammer games and movies like Bladerunner which all had a strong appeal. Still took a few years before I picked up my dad's old Minolta in any serious way, then exploring The Mighty Abandoned Cottage of Stäksön in Kallhäll.

Note: none of these sites have been entered by force. Either I've had permission or they have been left open and untended for a long time.

I have released most of the photographs on this site – it not stated otherwise – under the Creative Commons license Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported. If you wish to use any of these works commercially, get in touch.

All the recent photos has been shot with a Nikon D70s and Nikon D300 developed with Capture NX or Adobe Camera Raw and finished in Photoshop. In the old days – that's until 2005 – I used a Minolta SR-7 and Nikon F3 SLR. I still work in analog ways using medium format gear but very little has been published yet.

As my work is more artistic than documentary I occasionally edit details in a photo. Nothing big, mainly removing distracting graffiti. It has happened once so far.

bjorn@aska.nu

Check out ASKA at the Internet Archive's WayBack Machine!

Check out my friend Rutger's simple little screen test.

Rosa Kattens ruinromantiska expeditioner – Among Sweden's best ruin photographers.

erro.se – Robert "King of Research" Olsson's home on the web. Plenty of interesting info and photos.

John Eklunds elektriska museum – King of the Västerås steam power plant, and more.

Modern Swedish Ruins – Main abandoned-buddy. Some of our pics are strikingly similar, I know.

N*TROPY.US – The work of two Flickr friends from Toronto, Canada. Great write-ups and industrial photography. Don't miss the drain pipe excursions.

Ursula Pfitzer's Flickr – All film, all daring, all talent. And a very good Flickr-friend!

Yann's Flickr – Abandonment snap-shooter with style. A very good friend on Flickr and IRL.

28 dagar senare – Det Svenska Urban Exploration Forumet

Industrial Decay Network – High Quality abandoned-photography. Soon to release its second book.

[January 2, 2010]