Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration

By Troy Paiva

A booming subculture is on the rise: dubbed Urban Exploration, it involves sneaking into abandoned or off-limits factories, aviation "boneyards," decommissioned bases, and other derelict features of the military/industrial landscape. Troy Paiva is a foremost photographer of the UrbEx (as it's known to its devotees) phenomenon, and his distinctive blend of atmospheric night photos and lighting effects are the visual hallmarks of a scene that has drawn the increasing attention of the media and the publicas seen in recent programs on both the Discovery Channel ("Urban Explorers") and MTV ("Fear"). Illuminated by histories of the sites documented, Night Vision reveals the remarkable discoveries of a new generation of explorers.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811863387
• ISBN13: 9780811863384
• Release Date: June 2008
• Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 1.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 9.0" x 9.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

Beautiful!

This book is great! The photos are beautiful and surreal. If you like this book you might also check these out. Some of the creepiest urban exploration photos around: Broken Places Volume IBroken Places Volume II

A powerful art guide highly recommended for any contemporary art collection

Urban Exploration is the art of sneaking into abandoned or off-limits factors, aviation ' boneyards', and other derelict ex-military or industrial centers to photograph abandoned holdings, and NIGHT VISION captures these Urban Exploration results, comes from one of the foremost photographers of the phenomenon, and offers a blend of night photos and special lighting effects. A powerful art guide highly recommended for any contemporary art collection.

Masterful and Poignant

Anyone who's followed Troy Paiva's Lost America work will know what to expect from this book. Lavishly realised images of fascinating relics, awe-inspiring sights, and Troy's personal perspective on the world of discarded infrastructure. This is the sort of book you'll find yourself insisting friends, relatives, and workmates look through. Buy a spare copy :)

Masterfully written. Extreme quality photos

Troy Paiva has knocked one out of the park with this book. The quality of the photos leave little to be desired. His writings lead the reader through an odyssey of the macabre world of abandoned night photography. The added spice of light painting creates the mood so required to complete the aura behind this type of photography. It would be an injustice to not purchase and enjoy this book.

The color of black

I thought this collection of Paiva's night photos much better than his previous 2003 book Lost America: The Abandoned Roadside West mainly because Lost was issued by Motorbooks, a publisher of picture books rather than photo books which unfortunately meant that Paiva's images were mixed together with text in rather bland spreads. Chronicle Books are much more sympathetic to creative endeavors and with 'Night Vision' they give these remarkable photos the presentation they deserve. All the photos pages are black which certainly enhances their appeal and air of desolation but it also throws up Paiva's use of colored spots which, by now, is clearly his trademark. The five photo chapters reveal a wonderful selection of man-made abandonment. Chapter five featuring photos of the Aviation Warehouse at El Mirage, California is my favorite. To my mind nothing looks so dead and poignant as scrapped jetliners with miles of cabling, spars and struts from a half dismantled fuselage and cockpits with dust covered instrument clusters. The twenty-six photos capture all this so well. The four other chapters cover: the abandoned Byron Hot Springs Hotel between Oakland and Stockton, California; Desert; Southern Pacific's Oakland train station in all its crumbling splendor and decommissioned military bases. This last photo section could easily make a separate book with plenty of abandoned bases across the US. In the front of the book Paiva writes about his photo technique and adventures as a solitary nighttime snapper. He also writes a short intro to each photo chapter. The layout and printing are fine (with 175 screen) though I thought the blue captions on each page are rather hard to read in a domestic lighting environment. 'Night Vision' delivers some wonderful images in a format they deserve rather than the bland presentation that weakened the photos in 'Lost America'. ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.