I love rusty old things and I’ve been collecting them for a few years, in the form of photos, rusty shapes from RE, and random finds. My favourite was an old rusty metal house I found a few years ago in a burnt-out bonfire on an abandoned gypsy site, and kept it for a while. Not knowing how to clean it up, I eventually threw it away, fool! I could have used one of these methods.

My job often takes me to old industrial sites, which frequently turn out to be a source of inspiration. I’m attracted to the story behind these objects, their changing textures and colours, and above all the fact that, in many cases, it was the act of abandonment which eventually caused them to be beautiful. I took these photos in the storage area of a steam railway yard and at an old coal mine, both in the north-east of England, and on trips to Bosnia-Herzegovena; Provence, France; The City of the Dead, Cairo, Egypt; and Woodstock, NY and Portland, Maine, USA.