Of course its not haunted!

So it all started about ten days ago when I headed for Berlin armed with my Gaffa-taped 5/4, a bag of film, and little else. The area I had planned to photograph in Germany fell through but I still decided to go for adventure and any chance to cry 'Ick Bin Twit Bitte' to all the locals.

I found Berlin to be a wonderful place with its cafes, mixture of modern, old and odd architecture and of course the laid back Berliners. But rather than spend all my time grazing the city I decided to take a train ride to the old now abandoned military hospital in the Beelitz district. You can probably tell by now that I speak no German whatsoever and so Matha, a keen photographer, was my guide.
Delighted that Matha had brought her Hassleblad, which I insisted she do to relieve the boredom of following the likes of I around all day, we made for the old hospital and soon realised that if I had attempted the journey on my own I would of ended up in Austria.

I had known about the hospital for some time and whilst trolling the internet and although I had seen images of the place, I still wasn't sure what to expect.

Its hard to think of anything more spooky than an old run down abandoned hospital complex last used during WWII and then for a while afterwards by the Russians. But lets not go to deep into the history of things, important as that may be..
So after a 45 minute ride on an enormous triple decker train through lush green forest we stopped in Beelitz and quickly got off before the ticket inspector seen us.. Martha led the way and we soon arrived at what can only be described as; 'If its not haunted, it bloody well should be!' Hospital. These once beautiful buildings lay in a huge state of disrepair, with vines and ivy sprouting up from its mossy foundations. Buildings like these are dotted all over Berlin reminiscent of a different time, laying in limbo like some kind of forgotten gigantic allotment. Safe to say though that we had arrived..
Straight into the first building, power bar in mouth I immediatly knew this was going to be no easy task. There was between 10 and 15 rooms, perhaps 20, and then another 5 buildings like the one we were in. The problem with places like this is that there is simply too much to photograph and like a man lost on a mountain, one needs to sit and think about what they should and shouldn't do.
And so from room to room we went, and my, what photographic gems where to be found. But after about an hour of tripping over chair legs, stepping on broken glass and screaming at the sight of discarded shoes. I knew I faced an impossible task to photograph the hospital in all its entirety. So having decided to look through all of the buildings I thought it best to concentrate on one, rather than the whole place, knowing I could always return at a later date providing I didn't end up in Switzerland.
And that's basically it. There was no getting trapped, or lost, or falling through trap doors, or encounters with one eyed hunchbacks. It was all quite straight forward and we were back in time for sausages and sauerkraut.
Images to follow soon....Of course.