by Andreas Paehge in collaboration with Editor Michel Romaggi 
Edited and published by Yvette Depaepe, the 24th of February 2025

'Lost ...'

Dear Andreas, could you tell us a little about yourself and your photographic practice?
I am 60 years old, born in Bremen but living in the Ruhr area of Germany for the last 50 years.
My photographic journey began in 2011 when I bought my first digital camera (a Nikon D90). Fascinated by a colleague's blue hour pictures, this was my first area of photography. To get better results I changed my system to a Canon 5D Mark II with a wide angle lens.
After a short time I also became interested in architectural photography and long exposures. I also started to do post processing in Lightroom and Photoshop. Especially post-processing in Photoshop was a big challenge. What should I do, how and in what order to get the best results? Those were the main questions. Then, as luck would have it, something happened:
I saw a video that explained how to break down a Photoshop workflow into different steps.
I got in touch with Tony Kuypers Luminosity Panel to work with luminosity masks.
This was a game changer, especially working with luminosity masks. But it took me half a year to understand this technique. I'm still using both methods more or less for my photos. I would like to mention that I was also touched by the creation of 180° panoramas, which is a great way to "open up" spaces for a different view.
I'm also always interested in other genres of photography such as long time exposures or nature and animal photography.

'Villa Kloppstock'

How did you become interested in old buildings, especially abandoned ones?
It was in 2014 when my sister told me that she was in a small German Urbex group that explores lost buildings nearby, and I visited them for my first buildings. Then there was a two-year break, but lots of photos on social media got me interested again.
In general it is the decay of buildings, how nature takes them back in time, but also the history of these buildings that is sometimes very interesting. As an architectural photographer, it is also very obvious that the old master builders had the knowledge, but also the money, to create amazing buildings.
When you enter such a building, you are in a time capsule. You find old things like photos, books, furniture, industrial tools or machines and so on. Then you think about what it was like when people were there or did their work.
For most people it might be very difficult to be there, especially if it is a big industrial site where the wind makes a lot of noise with loose sheet metal, for example. But for me it's pure relaxation.
But you have to know that these are old buildings. There are a lot of dangers: holes, broken roofs, old stairs, etc. It takes a lot of experience to know where to go and why! Don't do it alone! Here are some rules I would like to emphasize:
Don't take anything but your photos. If a place is open, fine, otherwise take another. But the risk remains, which led to the rule not to go alone.

'Abandoned Villa C'

What do you want to photograph them for?
How and why do you choose them?
I try to show their beauty, even if they are abandoned, but also how the decomposition takes place or how nature captures them over time.
To choose them, I need a certain level of decay. I am not interested in a villa that was abandoned two weeks ago. The buildings that interest me are churches, palaces, castles, industrial sites, houses and mental hospitals or similar places.

'Abandoned Ballhaus Lego'
 

About your series of abandoned villas, how did you take the photographs?
Usually I go around first to see where I can find real points of interest. In most cases, I have seen other people's photos. Since I'm often interested in 180° panoramas, I look for photo points that are suitable for that.
Especially with panoramas, you need to make sure that you are in the exact centre of the room and that your tripod is exactly level with the horizon to avoid unbalanced photos in post-processing. The smaller the room, the more errors you'll get if you don't pay attention.
Since I'm bracketing, you need to think about how many shots you need to take to get the full dynamic. It could be 3 each, or 9 if the sun is shining and you still have dark areas in the room.
For 180° panoramas I take at least two rows of 45° each, sometimes three rows. This means you have up to 135 RAW files to work with.

'Abandoned Ballhaus Rouge'

MY EQUIPMENT:
I use a Canon R5 with an RF 15-35 lens most of the time. I use a lightweight pan head and a Sirui tripod. I also find it useful to use a Sirui levelling head. The ground can be very sloping. With the level head you don't have to worry about that. Then I take the jumps one jump at a time and all the lines I need.
THE SETTINGS:
Aperture 8-14 in most cases. To avoid too long exposures, I sometimes go up to 800 ISO if it is very dark. Then I took my brackets with all the lines in RAW format. I use the bracket function on my R5

'Ballhaus O'

THE POST-PROCESSING:
I have broken up my Photoshop workflow into different sections, as mentioned above. Some work is done in Lightroom first. This is where I select my RAW images, do some corrections such as lens correction, and export them.   Then I use Ptgui. In my opinion the most efficient and fastest program for panoramas. It also has the ability to merge my brackets into HDRs. The output is usually a large 16-bit TIFF file which I then use in Photoshop. Photomatix is also a very good program for creating the necessary HDR files with a natural aspect.

Then the work in Photoshop begins.

The workflow is divided into the following categories:

1. Perspective and cleanliness:

Align the image with Photoshop’s transformation tools and if necessary, eliminate noise. Topaz DeNoice gives me the best results for this. Sometimes I also merge different versions of the panorama files to get full dynamics.

2. Colour:

The colour adjustment is a very important step in my workflow. Sometimes I also work with split toning.

3. Contrast:

This is the most important stage where I work with Tony’s brightness panel to paint with light and shadows. This gives me the possibility to influence exactly the areas where I want to do it and I can paint with light or shadows wherever I want.

But I can also paint with dynamic or color in different areas of brightness of the image. At this stage, I do the most work. Sometimes I also use the tonal contrast of NIK tools.

4. Final:

In this step I do the finalization of the image. May be some additional color corrections and in some cases a vignette to bring the focus to a certain point inside the image.

'Villa Becker'

Many thanks for these most interesting informations, Andreas

See more on Andreas Paehge's portfolio.