BBC, My photos, and a bullet hole in my foot.

Gary you could add to your photography CV that you have featured in the media and up your prices accordingly :D :D :D

As others have said try not to take the insults of a***holes too seriously.

Keep the faith.
 
Just to echo the thoughts of most of the people here Gary - hang on in there you have done NOTHING wrong.
 
The only people to come out of this badly, apart from the bloated incompetent NHS bureaucracy, are some right tools in the Urbex community. Some community :shake:
 
Just had a look at that k******d's blog and found myself strangely irate....

I've left a reasoned and well considered comment on it which is waiting moderation. Strange that someone happy to berate a fellow tog for moderating comments is requred to moderate comments on his own blog.....

Ranting like a goodun now.... I'm off to try and reap what has been sown....

I just had a read as well, what a narrowminded individual!

Well, all we can do is tell Gary not to worry about it although I know it will be hard for him... My thoughts and support go out to him!
:hug:
 
That Shepy blog is a disgrace, what a massive **** he seems to be!!

Support the Edinburgh 1!!
 
I just had a read as well, what a narrowminded individual!

Well, all we can do is tell Gary not to worry about it although I know it will be hard for him... My thoughts and support go out to him!
:hug:

I've left comments as well - seems he's nicked content from this site for his blog and then paraphrased (made up) other stuff?
 
I thought the BBC piece was well balanced. The treatment of Gary was quite neutral, and the BBc were clearly - and rightly in my opinion - much more interested in the fact that the medical records weren't all removed when the hospital was closed. That's an appalling piece of bureaucratic incompetence which deserves to be highlighted.

So, here's an angle on the whole episode that I don't think anyone's picked up on ... What is the Right thing to do?

Gary, you've accidentally helped to break a story which is in the public interest. To my mind though, it's just a little bit of a shame that it was accidental. Having discovered the X-rays and medical records, would it not have been preferable to break the story deliberately? OK, that might put that hospital off limits to the urbex people. But so what? There are bigger issues afoot.

I think you've done the right thing in co-operating with the BBC. And it goes without saying (or at least it should go without saying) that anyone who disagrees with you is being selfish, anti-social etc.

Hang in there and hold your head up. You've got nothing to be sorry about.
 
I'm not trying to take the p*** here but maybe consideration should be given to closing this thread. Gary has the support of the regulars on this forum and if we keep this thread going it just gives the keyboard warriors a space to slag him off or make threats. I think that is the last thing he needs right now and this sort of vibe is totally detrimental to the site.

my comment on page 2

DELETE THIS THREAD AND PRETEND NOTHING HAPPENED.

Lovely weather Gary, nice to see it has brightened up since this morning :whistle:
 
I would suggest that it is counter productive to take the urine out of, or antagonise people with a different view, especially on a very public internet forum. It can only lead to the mods here having loads of work to do and alienating what is a very good photography forum to a wide section of photographers.

Much better to let this settle in my opinion :)
 
WOW what a lot of controversay in the Urbex community its has caused. I wouldnt worry about the ****s you get them everywhere. You could be famous or infamous when you are free :LOL: you may get offer to photograph more urbex scenes. Just remember leave it as you found it the golden rule of urbex :)
 
Gary, I am disgusted at the incredibly underhand the way that the BBC has treated you here. All the news reports online and the video clip on their site seem to be showing you as the person who is complaining about this and exposing the NHS by sending the pictures in.

The BBC are not making it clear that your involvement was merely to send in nice pictures of an abandoned building. Obviously they have taken this and sensationalised it as much as possible - to me it is a non-story.

Congrats again on the pictures, they are really striking. I'm just sorry for you that our sensationalist gutter media has brought you so much grief. Keep the chin up mate.
 
LOL - funny to post such a blog, but from an internet domain that's easily traceable to the writer :D

Anyhow - time for home. Go have a good drink tonight Gary and wait for the phone calls from friends and colleagues who see you on tonights news.
 
http://www.shepy.co.uk/blog/2008/07/urbex-n00b-may-have-cost-us-a-site - spot the irony in this idiots blog. He seems like a complete tit and to be honest this "Shepy" seems to be the one giving urbex people the bad name. What a tool.

I agree 100% with you Jimmy.
To me, he comes across as a friendless geek who is clearly getting off with the feeling of power generated by his rabble-rousing.

Gary, you've done nothing wrong mate, I admire your balls.:clap:

Note to anybody who has spat their dummy out because of this story...

Urban shots from so-called prohibited locations have been on the net for ages now and have recently started appearing in best selling photography magazines...Surely it was only a matter of time before the journos took notice.
Get over it.
 
I would suggest that it is counter productive to take the urine out of, or antagonise people with a different view, especially on a very public internet forum. It can only lead to the mods here having loads of work to do and alienating what is a very good photography forum to a wide section of photographers.

Much better to let this settle in my opinion :)

I agree here. Can we just keep the derogatory comments about specific sites and people to a minimum please ;)
There's no point in alienating the internet and photography community as a whole...just the narrow minded individuals ;)
 
I agree 100% with you Jimmy.
To me, he comes across as a friendless geek who is clearly getting off with the feeling of power generated by his rabble-rousing.

Gary, you've done nothing wrong mate, I admire your balls.:clap:

Note to anybody who has spat their dummy out because of this story...

Urban shots from so-called prohibited locations have been on the net for ages now and have recently started appearing in best selling photography magazines...Surely it was only a matter of time before the journos took notice.
Get over it.

I don't need to type anything now.... Well said...:clap:
 
I would ask are there any Urban explorers on here ? do any of you have any idea why these people are upset . Slagging urban exploration off is not clever its another form of photography, usually more challenging than most.

I don't agree with what explorer view point but i think Gary has been Naive at best. I am not getting in to a slaggin match here as that's not why i Joined I just want the exploring side put across and I am a experienced explorer and finding records in abandoned hospitals and other places is nothing new. Every place i have been to has them and Asylums are one of my specialities, so i do know what i am talking about. Perhaps they should not be there:shrug:, there are other ways of pointing this out to Authorities but they are unlikely to take action .

Gary's Mistake was in Giving away the access to the place and so preventing perhaps new Explorers cutting their teeth on what is a relatively easy site.

we are not a bunch off Chavs or neds so please no stereo types . These people Get reported to the police when we spot them destroying or damaging sites we go to. There are a number of reasons for people to get into this type of photography is one, historical record is another. I have explored with many types of people and met a lot of good people out there. Its a tight community where site information is shared by word off mouth and others who have posted their views /reports on sites

There are some amazing places and buildings out there that you all walk past without knowing it and have no idea. We do and put a lot of time and effort into research and history on the places we go Its not Just turn up take pictures and then leave. Gary at worst has passed up these chances of getting invited along to some off these places, He has not made any friends by appearing to be a glory hound for 5 mins of fame.
 
Nice One Gary mate but I would leave it now.:shake:
[Me: Late as always but didn't want to be left out]
 
I would ask are there any Urban explorers on here ? do any of you have any idea why these people are upset . Slagging urban exploration off is not clever its another form of photography, usually more challenging than most.

I don't agree with what explorer view point but i think Gary has been Naive at best. I am not getting in to a slaggin match here as that's not why i Joined I just want the exploring side put across and I am a experienced explorer and finding records in abandoned hospitals and other places is nothing new. Every place i have been to has them and Asylums are one of my specialities, so i do know what i am talking about. Perhaps they should not be there:shrug:, there are other ways of pointing this out to Authorities but they are unlikely to take action .

Gary's Mistake was in Giving away the access to the place and so preventing perhaps new Explorers cutting their teeth on what is a relatively easy site.

we are not a bunch off Chavs or neds so please no stereo types . These people Get reported to the police when we spot them destroying or damaging sites we go to. There are a number of reasons for people to get into this type of photography is one, historical record is another. I have explored with many types of people and met a lot of good people out there. Its a tight community where site information is shared by word off mouth and others who have posted their views /reports on sites

There are some amazing places and buildings out there that you all walk past without knowing it and have no idea. We do and put a lot of time and effort into research and history on the places we go Its not Just turn up take pictures and then leave. Gary at worst has passed up these chances of getting invited along to some off these places, He has not made any friends by appearing to be a glory hound for 5 mins of fame.



Nightshot, my apologies again. I have nothing left to add, I am sorry for what i did.

Gary.
 
A very reasoned argument nightshot, certainly puts the other point of view across.
FWIW, Gary realises he's dropped a ball on this one. He didn't set out to do it for 5 minutes of fame. He merely submitted some nice photos to the BBC, who in turn got a grip of it merely to sensationalise the issue.

He does know that he dropped a ball by giving away access to the site.
Am I right in thinking that the site is due for demolition though?
 
Gary....I think that you have done absolutelly right (I think nobody would like to have their files left like that)If wasn't you, it would be someone else to find it.....Tomorrow, they will find another story to cover and all will be forgotten.........
 
I would ask are there any Urban explorers on here ? do any of you have any idea why these people are upset . Slagging urban exploration off is not clever its another form of photography, usually more challenging than most.

I don't agree with what explorer view point but i think Gary has been Naive at best. I am not getting in to a slaggin match here as that's not why i Joined I just want the exploring side put across and I am a experienced explorer and finding records in abandoned hospitals and other places is nothing new. Every place i have been to has them and Asylums are one of my specialities, so i do know what i am talking about. Perhaps they should not be there:shrug:, there are other ways of pointing this out to Authorities but they are unlikely to take action .

Gary's Mistake was in Giving away the access to the place and so preventing perhaps new Explorers cutting their teeth on what is a relatively easy site.

we are not a bunch off Chavs or neds so please no stereo types . These people Get reported to the police when we spot them destroying or damaging sites we go to. There are a number of reasons for people to get into this type of photography is one, historical record is another. I have explored with many types of people and met a lot of good people out there. Its a tight community where site information is shared by word off mouth and others who have posted their views /reports on sites

There are some amazing places and buildings out there that you all walk past without knowing it and have no idea. We do and put a lot of time and effort into research and history on the places we go Its not Just turn up take pictures and then leave. Gary at worst has passed up these chances of getting invited along to some off these places, He has not made any friends by appearing to be a glory hound for 5 mins of fame.

For me it looks like, that all those Urban togs are somekind of closed fraternity lol that no one else can join and by doing some photos and trying to publish they are being taken on...
All this what happened to Gary was just coincidence. He just wanted to share his work, nothing else.

Im 100% with you Gary :)
 
To anyone else who joins here, in this thread, just to make a passing comment to Gary regarding what he has done, may I please just say a few words.

We are all human, whether we photograph things from babies to landscapes, cityscapes to urbex - we're all human.

Gary didnt go looking for his five minutes of fame. He's not money hungry, and he certainly didnt do it to upset anyone.

I think all of us, at some point would have been naive, to think "Look I've taken an amazing photograph - lets send it in for everyone to see" why shouldnt we want to showcase our work as an amatuer photographer, semi-pro and pro a-like.

So what does this mean for you as the future? The Law hospital will be harder to access, at least for a few months. There are plenty of other sights, and whilst the thought does interest me of urbex photography, its not something that I am personally keen to jump on the band wagon of.

All the story has brought across are the fact that there are many places like this up and down the country which are easily accessible to all. Photographers and kids alike.

For the people who are slating Gary, how would you feel if you were to walk into a building, to take some photographs and found your details laid about? Oh Wait....the goverment does it well enough themselves these days !!! The unit numbers they were on about are easily trackable, each person has their own and unique unit number.

The people that be-little what Gary has done, are the ones that do this every-day. The ones that feel no guilt and remorse of walking past people's personal details but the joy in photographing it.

But lets not forget we all make mistakes - all I have to ask is that if you are coming on here as a new member just to reply to this thread, then please think about the community in which you are entering.

We are a close nit community who all share a love of photography of all standards. And
while some people agree with Gary's decision to cooperate with the BBC, and some people do not - what we do do well is support our own.

Whilst Gary may be feeling the backlash is all personal at the moment, may I remind you that this is the way the Media portrays things, and before you hang draw and quarter him, please listen to his side of the story also.

In 70-years time, when you've passed away, and your grandkids are urbex photographers and they stumble upon an old hopsital that has granddads records in it. Just think how they'd feel that the place werent more secure.

Its a good job that there isnt corpral punishement these days, or else some people would have had him straight to the gallows without him saying a word.

All I have to state was that it was going to be sooner or later that the BBC found out that this was what NHS hopsital security was like on old sites, its not much better on new ones.....so whats the difference.

Gary - I support you. I support what you did. And if someone joins TP just to get into you....then they'll have me to deal with.








[And I'm pretty scary when I'm angry]
 
I don't agree with what explorer view point but i think Gary has been Naive at best.

Being naive is no crime and Gary freely admits this. I'm also experenced at urbex and if you look on flickr there are lot of people who use it as braggin rights, so BBC or anyone could have got information from there. His only crime is taking picture that are tooooo damn good and long may he continue to do so :D
 
Guys again thank you, I have seen the error of my ways. I am gutted at the way its going.
 
i do except that it was a genuie mistake mate. Reporting the papers/records still being there was fine its just the way it happened. It s a learning experience let it cool down and blow over perhaps you may get out to some of these places. Slagging other sites of will achieve nothing but animosity. Yes it's been given planning permission to turn it into 600 housing along with 2 other large abandoned hospital sites in the Glasgow area Marcel.

The thing about this is that urban exploration has suffered at the hands of the media where they have put it in a bad light and made the community very mistrustful of their intentions, which may explain the hostility and we have had glory hounds before which i do except Gary is not one, i only Joined to give our point of view and there are a number of open sites out there to view peoples work.
 
I don`t think anyone has anything to worry about, Garry or the people who photograph urban decay, I think the problem is medical records were left on site.

Quote from the BBC

He said: "We have clear policies about the safety of patient information and there were clear policies and procedures followed in 2001 when the hospital transferred from Law to the new hospital in Wishaw. So this came as a very unpleasant surprise to us.

It`s not the first time

Quote from the BBC

In May it emerged that documents had been found at Strathmartine Hospital on the outskirts of Dundee, including details about a girl's adoption and a child with foetal alcohol syndrome.

I think the Urbex explorers/ photographers are panicing about nothing and could contiue doing what they do as long as the don`t cause more damage.

The old john radcliffe hospital in the middle of Oxford is now abandoned, with one security post at the front Who wants to give it try. :nono:
 
i do except that it was a genuie mistake mate. Reporting the papers/records still being there was fine its just the way it happened. It s a learning experience let it cool down and blow over perhaps you may get out to some of these places. Slagging other sites of will achieve nothing but animosity. Yes it's been given planning permission to turn it into 600 housing along with 2 other large abandoned hospital sites in the Glasgow area Marcel.

The thing about this is that urban exploration has suffered at the hands of the media where they have put it in a bad light and made the community very mistrustful of their intentions, which may explain the hostility and we have had glory hounds before which i do except Gary is not one, i only Joined to give our point of view and there are a number of open sites out there to view peoples work.


You should hang around, a friendly place here. Just so you know, the Daily Record and Sun are all over this like a rash. They have asked to use my photos, and I have forced them to make a donation to charity if they use them, and refused ALL payment 100%. I need to be clear as to my motives here, I did not want to **** on anyones parade.

I wanted an image to feature here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/7489469.stm

Nowhere else, and I did not expect ANY of this.

Gary.
 
He has not made any friends by appearing to be a glory hound for 5 mins of fame.

we have had glory hounds before which i do except Gary is not one,

What? As an urban explorer myself, you should be setting a better example. What about all those urban explorers that post reports, histories and images of locations they explore on the internet? Are they not compromising locations too? Gary has done nothing wrong. The BBC were underhanded in their approach... it is they you should have beef with.

Nothing against you dude(?), but there are some people out there on the web that are giving Gary a hard time for no real reason.
 
Just to echo what I said yesterday...

The BBC were never interested in this story from the Urban Photography angle...It was always about the politics.
The photography side of the story is incidental.
All the BBC ever wanted to do was highlight the shortcomings of the NHS and the goverment.

Nightshot: hang around and post some pictures please.
 
I have seen the error of my ways.
Which is...?

... don't do it?
... don't get caught doing it?
... don't brag about it?
... don't let the BBC sweet-talk you again?
... don't be vain about getting publicity for your work?

I'm not saying these are all errors. Everyone has a different take on what is "right" and what is "wrong" here. I'm just curious to know how you feel about it now. In retrospect, what would have been the "right" thing for you to do?
 
Mmmm, glad i got sky now as i can tune in to BBC Scotland local news on one of the high numbered channels.

Wonder if the Urbexer's would have been so nasty to you if you had found one of their own badly injured after falling through a knackered floor? You would have been a hero then wouldn't you.........

The BBC do make it look like you were the one looking for this sensational story, but we should be used to the way the BBC manipulates stories to meet their own political needs.
 
LOL. Do not trust the media - ever! If you've learned that it's not a wasted exercise.
 
Please PLEASE gary tell me you didn't go ahead with the interview after people warned you about what the bbc would be like and other such issues going ahead with this?
 
i do urbexing and to be honest it doesnt bother me what has happened

i know EdinburghGary didnt mean for all this to happen, but you get use to the media turning things around. (never trust anyone in the media to post a posative impression of urbexers)

i can understand why people are ****ed off, people never post access detail incase chavs etc get in a trash the place.

i think its out of order all the threatening emails you have been getting and people should grow up and stop being keyboard warriors.

There are so many different sites to do, you can just find a new one.


people will forget about it soon so dont worry , hopefully you have learnt a few things
 
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