Abandoned Places Stun in Haunting Photo Series

Photographer Eleonora Costi captures some places where time has stopped.

ByABC News
December 5, 2016, 5:50 PM

— -- Italian photographer Eleonora Costi’s project highlights abandoned places.

"I traveled all through Italy seeking for places filled with stories and lived life, left forgotten and to the power of dust," she said.

Her work features everything from houses, still furnished with richly painted large rooms, to former psychiatric hospitals; from churches to border schools and monasteries.

Shot across Italy, some of the places she features collapsed after earthquakes and the old owners were forced to abandon them. In others, it seems, the people just walked away.

"I'm trying to revive with my photos saving them from oblivion and decay," Costi said.

Costi has found objects like photo albums, medicine, pianos and books. Some places have been looted by vandals, some virtually untouched.

"It's exciting, but also sad to find the objects from previous owners, dinner tables, ready beds and closets full of clothes."

She said she hopes to preserve these places through the images and evoke "stunning emotions, astonishment and uneasiness" for viewers.

"This is the only way to breathe new life into these places," she said.