Conradie Hospital, Pinelands - abandoned for several years - pics inside!

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It's a very old, single story hospital divided into oooh, I don't know, probably about 40 buildings. The place has been TRASHED by vagrants, even the flooring of some of the buildings has been stolen. Toilets have been smashed, baths have been stolen, it was really bad. It was quite a rush getting the whole thing photographed, so I didn't try anything arty - I just used aperture priority with exposure compensation dropped one full stop (the default is just silly bright for some reason) with AEB set to +/-1 stop. Other than that it was pretty much walk, aim, click, but I managed to capture pretty much everything in the three hours I had inside. The Canon 600D might have zero weather sealing, but it survived three hours of being soaked in rain.

I opened a dedicated Flickr account for the very reason of hosting these pictures as I don't want them on the Photostream of my main account, there's nothing arty about these photos (they're more like photojournalism). These are all completely unedited straight from the camera, simply converted to RAW and resized. The white mushy stuff on the floor in some of the pictures is old medical records, there should be a shot or two of an intact record where you can actually read all about the patient. You'll see some pictures of fences with holes cut into them or simply pushed over, which is how the vagrants get in and out. You'll see holes in the ground where wiring has been stolen, and holes in walls where copper piping has been ripped out. You'll see stolen flooring. You'll see an absolute mess. Oh, and some are a bit blurry in places, my camera and lens got well and truly SOAKED and you're seeing rain trickling down the front element.

There are 215 pictures in total, here's the link: Flickr: oj10101.randompics' Photostream

I'll post a few here:

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Underground cabling ripped up


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Old medical records


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More old medical records


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Till slip from 1994 showing a packet of biscuits for R2.19 - very good condition considering it's almost 20 years old!


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Smashed toilet for no good reason


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Missing ceiling, roof and even some wall


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Shredded paper beneath missing flooring


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Destruction
 
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More destruction

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Print of an old x-ray


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Further random destruction


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Untouched chemicals of some kind, they're on an old autopsy table so who knows how dangerous they are


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Not even outer walls are immune to vandalism


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Absolutely trashed, and for no good reason


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More stolen copper piping


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Remnants of a bathroom
 
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Drywalls and flooring don't stand a chance


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These crutches must be worth a small fortune, I'm surprised they haven't been stolen


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The hand-towel dispenser is probably worth more than the stolen piping


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There was a bath here at one stage
 
This is terrible.
Its not like we have too many hospitals in our country.
I don't know the history behind Conradie. Is it state owned or privately owned.
Either way, its shocking to have abandoned it.
 
Pls go there at night and take some photos ... ;)
 
Jeebus

Great pics though! when did you take them?

Drive past regularly and bemoan the state of the place even from the outside.

It's criminal is what it is :mad:
 
Last edited:
Hi oJ0

I tried to go there last year, for the same reason, to take pictures. Did you enter via a broken wall somewhere at the back?

Was planning to go there one late evening but could not find a way to get it. I believe being there when it is pitch dark should be an incredible and scary experience!
 
Is there security there that you need to get permission from or did you just go in?
 
Pls go there at night and take some photos ... ;)

You're cooked in the head :p That's not a place you really want to be alone during the day, CERTAINLY not at night.

Jeebus

Great pics though! when did you take them?

Drive past regularly and bemoan the state of the place even from the outside.

It's criminal is what it is :mad:

It was the afternoon of 16 November 2013.

Hi oJ0

I tried to go there last year, for the same reason, to take pictures. Did you enter via a broken wall somewhere at the back?

Was planning to go there one late evening but could not find a way to get it. I believe being there when it is pitch dark should be an incredible and scary experience!

Is there security there that you need to get permission from or did you just go in?

There is security there, but they won't let you in. If you'd like I can forward the relevant info to you for obtaining permission. It took me about six weeks to get permission.
 
It's a very old, single story hospital divided into oooh, I don't know, probably about 40 buildings. The place has been TRASHED by vagrants, even the flooring of some of the buildings has been stolen. Toilets have been smashed, baths have been stolen, it was really bad. It was quite a rush getting the whole thing photographed, so I didn't try anything arty - I just used aperture priority with exposure compensation dropped one full stop (the default is just silly bright for some reason) with AEB set to +/-1 stop. Other than that it was pretty much walk, aim, click, but I managed to capture pretty much everything in the three hours I had inside. The Canon 600D might have zero weather sealing, but it survived three hours of being soaked in rain.

I opened a dedicated Flickr account for the very reason of hosting these pictures as I don't want them on the Photostream of my main account, there's nothing arty about these photos (they're more like photojournalism). These are all completely unedited straight from the camera, simply converted to RAW and resized. The white mushy stuff on the floor in some of the pictures is old medical records, there should be a shot or two of an intact record where you can actually read all about the patient. You'll see some pictures of fences with holes cut into them or simply pushed over, which is how the vagrants get in and out. You'll see holes in the ground where wiring has been stolen, and holes in walls where copper piping has been ripped out. You'll see stolen flooring. You'll see an absolute mess. Oh, and some are a bit blurry in places, my camera and lens got well and truly SOAKED and you're seeing rain trickling down the front element.

There are 215 pictures in total, here's the link: Flickr: oj10101.randompics' Photostream

I'll post a few here:

11777898724_b45886d20a_c.jpg

Underground cabling ripped up

Purple fringing is a bit hectic… kit lens?

It's easy to remove though - here are the instructions I copied off a website years ago - can't find the source right now but when I do I'll add it.

1. Duplicate the background layer (Ctr/Command-J).
2. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and use a value of 180.
3. Click the eye icon next to the duplicate layer in the layers palette to hide it for now.
4. Go to Select > Color Range. Move the cursor over the image window (it turns into an eyedropper) and sample the color in the blue fringe. You may need to zoom in, so just press Ctr/Command-Spacebar to temporarily switch to the zoom tool and drag over the area you want to magnify. It also helps if the eye dropper is set to sample a 3x3 pixel area (You can do this before by selecting the eyedropper in the toolbar and changing the sample size in the options bar at the top, then it will use that size in all the dialogs). Adjust the fuzziness slider to 90 in the Color Range dialog.
5. Go to Select > Modify > Expand selection and enter 3 pixels.
6. Go to Select > Feather > and enter 2 pixels.
7. Click the eye icon next to the duplicate layer to make the layer visible and click the layer in the layers palette to make it active.
8. Change the blending mode to Color (this preserves the underlying detail or luminance values and changes only the color).
9. Click the Add Layer Mask at the bottom of the layers palette (since you have a selection in place, the mask will hide everything except the selection).
10. There will still be some blue fringing, so make sure the layer mask is selected (click on it in the layers palette so that it has a border around it), select the brush tool (press B), press D to set the foreground color to white, set the brush opacity to 100% in the options bar at the top, and paint over the blue fringing to clean up any stray color.
 
Look at the state of the place!!!
Why still pay for security if nearly everything is already stripped?
State should just sell the ground rather if they can not maintain it!

Eish, and why does it take 6 weeks to get permission to get into a ****hole like that? Wonder if they trying to hide something?
 
Purple fringing is a bit hectic… kit lens?

It's easy to remove though - here are the instructions I copied off a website years ago - can't find the source right now but when I do I'll add it.

Kit lens covered in rain :D I wasn't about to use anything other than the crappy kit lens in the middle of a downpour :p

I know how to sort it out, thanks anyway :) As I said, this is more photojournalism than photography. I simply don't have the time to edit the 215 pictures I uploaded (never mind the 630 total).
 
Look at the state of the place!!!
Why still pay for security if nearly everything is already stripped?
State should just sell the ground rather if they can not maintain it!

Eish, and why does it take 6 weeks to get permission to get into a ****hole like that? Wonder if they trying to hide something?

Read my post, the ground was sold years ago.
 
The hundreds of crutches in one of the pictures is sad and depressing.
Great pictures.
 
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