The Old Police Station
By now, you probably know — or at least have an idea — that I make a living by photographing places, properties, and buildings. Over the years, this work has taken me to some incredible places I never expected to see. But out of all the locations I’ve been to, there’s one kind that excites me more than any other.
Abandoned properties.
I don’t fully understand why, but every time I’m asked to photograph one of these places, I get more excited than if I were shooting a $4 million home. There’s something about them that grabs me — creatively, emotionally. These are places with layers. History. Silence. And a feeling that something important once happened there.
Don’t get me wrong — photographing high-end homes is great too. But when I go into those, I’m there to help tell a story that’s already been written. The space has been styled, lit, and polished. The narrative is clear. I just help capture it.
With abandoned places, though, there’s no script. Time has written its own version. What’s left behind are many kinds of stories — written over time by the people who lived or worked there, layered with silence and decay. They tell a different kind of story. I’m just there to notice them.
A few weeks ago, I was commissioned to photograph several sites — and one of them was an old police station.
As soon as I saw the location on the list, I was interested. I mean, who gets to walk freely through a police station and just wander? Unless you’re an officer, probably not many people.
That morning, I arrived at the front door of the building. I had the keys, the alarm code, and a mental speech ready in case someone from the new police station — which was just a few metres away — came over to ask what I was doing.
I opened the door, and the stillness hit me instantly. When I stepped inside, a ray of light came through the open door and lit up the dust in the air. Everything else felt still. The colours, the air, the silence — it felt like the place had been frozen in time.
Once my eyes adjusted, I realised this wasn’t the kind of police station I was expecting. It wasn’t just old — it had been eroded by time and heavily damaged by human hands.
It was unsettling, beautiful, and eerie — all at once.
Some curtains, heavy with dust, still clung to the windows. In some rooms, the ceiling had collapsed, leaving insulation, pipes, and loose wires exposed. Certain doors had been sealed from the inside, likely to stop people from breaking in. Other areas were so dark I had to rely on my phone’s torch to see anything at all.
The walls were stained and cracked. Some sections showed signs of water damage, others looked like they’d been hit or kicked. There were graffiti markings in different parts of the building, and in one spot, an air conditioning unit had been ripped out of a fireplace.
Dust covered nearly everything. The walls had a yellowish tint — I couldn’t tell if that was the original colour or just the result of time. On the floor, I spotted a few empty bottles. Maybe someone had been there recently, just passing through, or maybe even living there for a while.
I took a breath and set my gear down nearby. I walked the space carefully to check for any risks. The roof looked fragile in a few spots, and there was always the possibility of someone still being inside. But the building was quiet. Completely still.
After assessing the space, I paused for a moment. I stood there and took it all in — the textures, the damage, the way the light hit certain walls.
It was amazing. A kind of beauty that only shows up when something has been left alone long enough to become unfamiliar.
Then I picked up my camera and began shooting — while my mind was crafting an infinite number of stories this place might have seen.
Here are a few of the photos I took that day. Just a note: these are my personal edits, not the ones delivered to the council.
Let me know if stories like this resonate with you — I’d love to hear it.
