Photographer Simon Sugden's Yorkshire exhibition shows 10 years of abandoned buildings

Simon Sugden, 51, draws inspiration from dereliction in architecture.

His photography explores the idea that buildings have a second chance after their useful life, where nature and decay take over to create a new kind of beauty.

In pursuit of this, Simon seeks out once loved and now abandoned mills and attractions, showing them in a new and hauntingly beautiful light.

Simon, who has a two-year-old daughter called Jennie with partner Elizabeth Campbell, 30, has previously shown a rare glimpse of Bradford’s historic Conditioning House.

He captured the building, which has been dormant since the late 1980s, ahead of development proposals for around 130 apartments by Priestley Construction.

Simon also took photos inside the formerly opulent Odeon in Bradford which was the third-biggest in Britain when it opened its doors in 1930.

He is bringing a photographic exhibition - which will display some of his finest works - called The Beauty In Decay to Cliffe Castle Museum in Keighley, West Yorkshire, next month.

He said: “I’ve been doing it now for 10 years and it’s nice to show the other side of some of these buildings that are neglected.

“After they have been used and are decaying, they can be looked at negatively but there is beauty in decay.

“It’s just showing where I have been over that time, I never damage anything, I never break in, I just go in there and get the pictures.

“There is an old farmhouse I got into Snowdonia, it has a yellow fireplace, which was amazing. It is like a little time capsule.

“We had a tip-off it was open, unfortunately, the farmer had died and his wife had passed away. There were all the trinkets in there, all the old jewellery, old clothes.

“Some of my favourites are small cottages and houses, you just see so much just left but it makes it interesting to see how people lived.

“I feel like some of these buildings that have been used and sadly gone, there is a beauty to it and that’s what I wanted to try and show in my images. There is like a second life to them.”

The exhibition will showcase 15 images and a large centrepiece of a scrapyard in Shipley which is currently still in use.

The exhibition - which coincides with 10 years of him taking photos - will run from Saturday, July 20, to Sunday, September 8.

Simon is also hosting a 'Meet The Artist' day at Cliffe Castle Museum and Park on Saturday, July 27, between noon and 2pm.

For more information, visit www.facebook.com/suggyspics/