Wonders of the World

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What do look for when it comes to urban photography? Urban photography doesn’t have to mean perfectly framed parks and stoic skyscrapers. Some of the best urban photos feature bizarre abandonments or even subversive and illegal subjects. Here are ten sites that span the spectrum and that anyone who loves urban photographs should know and bookmark!

Non-Photography - No Rules Street Photography: What is nonphotography? Well, in a way it is anti-photography, no-rules street photography. It eschews strict definition, and is stylistically as impressive as it is diverse. Nitsa’s favorite nonphotographs show all kinds of possibilities outside of normal compositional approaches.

Sleepy City - Abandonments Photography: There are a number of forums, blogs and other websites dedicated to cataloging urban explorations in tunnels, deserted buildings and other off-limits urban no-man’s-lands. However, Sleepy City dot Net has a particularly great collection of tagged images from urban adventures.

Opacity - Artful Abandonments: Like Sleepy City, Opacity focuses mostly on urban ruins and abandonments, though the approach taken is quite different. Whereas Sleepy City focuses more on the adventure and shooting pictures when and where one can, Opacity emphasizes the art and beauty of these spaces.

Wooster Collective - Street Art Photography: Few sites are as frequently updated with amazing graffiti from around the world as WoosterCollective. Artists and observers submit images of street art of all kinds, with an emphasis on graffiti (illegal and illegal) which are then posted with a short blurb or backstory

Strictly No Photography - Forbidden Photos: This is a great user-submitted content site where anyone can upload images, or more specifically: pictures taken in places people aren’t allowed to take pictures in. One of their best sets can be found at the bottom of the page - images of signs that, ironically enough, forbid photography.

Urban Dirty - Free Stock Textures: Urban Dirty collections and makes available stock images of urban textures of all kinds. They offer them at various sizes and categorized under a number of tags. These are interesting intrinsically, but they’re also a great resource for avid Photoshoppers.

Dmoz Urban Photographers: The DMOZ directory lists a few dozen interesting sites of specifically urban photographers, from portfolios to blogs. Some of these are regionally based, others are stylistically themed, but all of them are accompanied by helpful and short taglines describing their contents.

Flickr Urban Photography: Flickr has a number of urban photography groups with a range of interests, from the urban decay and abandoned collections, to urban negatives (focusing on overlooked urban objects) and urban fragments (no people, just architectural objects).

Epic Edits Site List - 87 More Photo Sites: Epic edits has also compiled a lengthy list of photoblogs and other photography websites, from amateur to professional in content. This list also contains a great many feeds of regularly updated sites, for people who want to add photography to their regular RSS reads.

WebUrbanist - Urban Arts and Culture: Of course, for anyone new to the site, WebUrbanist is a great resource for discovering lesser known street artists and urban photographers. If you want to be a featured artist or know someone who should be, please feel free to contact us. Enjoy this article? Subscribe to the feed!