Shane Thoms is a photographer and photojournalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Educated in fine art photography and design via Monash University, Charles Sturt University and the Australian Academy of Design, his work explores the discarded urban space from a cross-cultural perspective. He has visually documented a number of exclusion zones including Chernobyl, Fukushima and Plymouth. His books include Abandoned South Australia and Abandoned New South Wales.
Description
From collapsing rural homesteads to derelict inner city industrial sites, Abandoned Victoria takes the reader on a compelling journey through the remnants scattered across a state in the midst of rapid transformation. In a landscape where a surging population collides with a critical housing shortage, these long-forgotten places carry a quiet, almost unsettling irony—standing empty while demand grows all around them. Captured in shadowy tones that echo Victoria’s moody skies, each photograph invites you to pause and absorb the stillness, to witness the quiet poetry of abandonment. These visuals speak not only of place, but of the lives once lived within—a meditation on time, memory and the traces left in the dust trail as Victoria surges forward at full speed. For urban explorers, history enthusiasts and those drawn to the stark beauty of decay, Abandoned Victoria is a haunting tribute to the hidden spaces that continue to linger at the edges of progress.
1. The Country Power Station2. The Paper Mill3. The Denim Factory4. The Brick Works5. Former Sunbury Asylum6. Pleasant Creek Hospital7. Former Larundel Asylum9. Mooroopna Hospital10. Kyneton Hospital11. Country Homesteads12. Gasworks13. Geelong Power Plant14. Wildlife Wonderland15. The Met16. The Drive-In17. The Workshop18. Calder Park Raceway19, The Tin Lids Factory20. Swimming Pools21. Country Chapels