I agree with you. Souvenirs are, in my opinion, a way to quickly ruin a site. The souveniers should come only in the form of images.

Thanks for the comment.

This was really an interesting show, with lots of good information. Perhaps some stories about encounters with the law would have been interesting, too. I’ve already been tapped by the Detroit Police Dept. for shooting in an abandoned warehouse area and spent at least 20 minutes on the phone with them (two calls) including a request of the photos I shot in one area. Like a fool, I sent them. This cop drove all the way out to the ‘burbs and beat on my door (I wasn’t home.) I would think they have more pressing matters to attend to than this. I was probably reported by a utilities worker looking to earn some brownie points.

Amateurs are not necessarily au fait with the value of their images and can be persuaded to license them to Getty for low rates, therby undermining the rates that professionals work hard to achieve. It might be another nail into the coffin for professional photographers. Can they compete with the millions of images put into Flickr every day?

Just my humble thoughts about this topic.

The section on “souveniers” is particularly of interest as thats a hot topic around my local sites. Many major famous urbex draws have been nicked in the past year alone. Whilst all the urbexers I’ve met or spoken to subscribe to the take only photos, leave only footprints mantra (with a single rare exception of a lone tattered business card, or leaving your handle singned in a hidden urbex community guestbook akin to a geocache!), it only takes one person to ruin the ruin per se.