Alleys and Ruins: The Book
25 years of urban night photography: a journey through grit, beauty, and survival, told through images and stories of life in the shadows.
For over two decades I wandered through alleys, ruins, and forgotten corners of American cities, always at night and often alone, chasing light and decay.
I began photographing these places in the middle of a personal collapse. What started as an escape became something else: a lifeline and a way back. The more I searched through the grime, the haunting ruins and derelict alleys, the more I found unexpected beauty in the shadows. And while I was out trying to redeem these forgotten places, the stories started piling up... the strange, often surreal things that happen in the corners people avoid. I wrote them all down from the very beginning.
This book gathers the most powerful of those images and stories: the moments of danger, grace, humor, and transformation that unfolded along the way.
This is a book about photography, but also about survival, the city at night, and the unexpected redemption you can find when everything else has fallen apart.
Expected release early 2026
The book will feature over 100 photographs and dozens of true stories from 25 years of shooting across the U.S. and Canada.
There are two parallel stories:
One explains how I came to become a person who would devote themselves to wandering a city's most dangerous corners in the middle of the night and decide, “Yes! This is where I want to plant my camera and flash my bright lights for the next 3 hours. Hope nothing bad happens!”
The other story is the collection of things that happen in these places when a man does such a thing, consistently for 25 years.
Working Cover — Subject to Change
Alleys & Ruins no. 90, Window
2006, Chicago, IL, 10:45pm
Horace
It’s a warm summer night in Chicago where I’ve framed Alley 90, and released the shutter. My friend Phil and I are waiting for the 30-minute exposure to complete itself, when we’re approached by Horace, an odd looking fellow. He’s wearing a suit jacket with the sleeves torn off and has no shirt underneath. His face, chest and neck are scarred with dozens of tiny lines from many small cuts, apparently inflicted years ago.
He tells us he’s just gotten out of prison where he met a superhuman being who taught him to connect with his mind and with his own super-powers. Horace then tells us he has himself achieved superhuman abilities. He attempts to describe an unnatural back flip he did recently, 20 ft in the air, landing on a rooftop, while escaping a band of pursuers.
I ask him if he can show us anything right now. “I can’t demonstrate to you my powers - they only work when I’m in danger or when they are truly necessary”