Forbidden Places: Exploring Our Abandoned Heritage Hardcover – October 1, 2009

The photography was good, but the text was sub-standard at best. Instead of giving facts, the writer chose to blurt semi-poetic gibberish, all the while making the occasional political statement, ("For having organized homicides in the name of implementing justice, by various means under different styles of sentencing" p.96) I didn't know executions occurred in the Newark county jail. Did David Margaine do any real research before writing?Anyway, the stars for for the photography.

A good price for a decent-sized hard cover book, and the pictures are very good. A massive fault is the ambigous text and the lack of captions for the pictures, describing where inside each location the picture was taken. The description for each location tries to sound informative, but just comes off as fake poetry. Instead of describing a location as "The cradle of history, a bridge of departure at the crossroads, site of numerous epics", how about just writing something straightforward like "This site dates back to Roman times and has been used as a refuge by townspeople ever since"?

Another book on urban exploration/abandoned spaces. Good photography. I always find this genre somewhat interesting.

Includes many photographs of abandoned industrial, institutional and domestic locales in Europe. I was impressed by the variety of locations. This book is thoughtfully composed and interesting. The slightly cryptic/poetic descriptions left me wanting to know more details about these mysterious places. This is more of a photography book than an in-depth report of urban exploration. A number of these magnificent lost structures have been destroyed already, making some of these pictures all the more rare. Haunting and beautiful.

Amazing photos of the tracks of human activity.The print quality is very good on my copy. Go to the author's web site for more details on these sites, understanding the worker's (or inmate's or patient's) story at these sites is important.

a good book, how sad our america is today, with plants etc... closing this is a look at stuff in a gone by era..

awesome

Beautiful looking coffee table book. Inside are locations from over Europe as well as the USA which is a nice break from many of the others that I have found that focus exclusively on the USA. So many interesting places, and that's where the problems start.There is too much here! If the book followed a single theme it would be different, i.e., if it focused only on asylums, or only on prisons or the like. But instead there are electrical plants, glass works, mines... With only 4 to 8 pages for each they whirl by. And then the pictures, as another reviewer said it seems as though the book has a low print quality. Personal note here is that I prefer color images and many of the pictures are color however there are also plenty of black and white images or images that seem to have the reduced color schemes. The photographers affinity for taking photos of documents and paperwork is apparent as well and fills quite a few pictures, there are other things I would rather be seeing however.The poetry doesn't add much. At times it is helpful, giving details of what is being shown however at other times it is merely whimsical and doesn't help at all. It does set the somber mood of the book.What it came down to for me is great premise, poor execution. These are places as the author states may never be seen again. Some are already gone and this book hardly gives them the mention they deserve, instead shuttling quickly from one place to another lacking any theme save their collective abandonment.

The book is full of interesting photographs.The images are excellent and very inspiring.The text is well thought out and easy to read.A very good book for both the experience photographer as well as a beginner.Very good value for money as the quality of the paper and printing is very good.

Great books in excellent condition!

Super

Very much a lost opportunity, Sylvain Margaine's rather beautiful photographs have been very badly served by terrible page layouts and cheap production standards.

Beautiful collection of photos.