j3bu.com is run by the North West “explorer” j3bu. Urban exploration is a form of reality hacking. For quite a few of us, myself included, it began from the childhood past time of wandering where you weren’t supposed to be. It wasn’t until 2005 that I decided to start taking a camera with me to these places and eventually stumbled upon urban exploration or “UE” through the internet and it was 2005 I stopped playing the game from my childhood and became an “explorer”. Since then i’ve climbed cranes, been underground and splashing about in drains. I’ve been in hospitals and asylums, swimming pools and childrens homes, banks and mills.

I’ve been up, down, on and in places I wasn’t meant to be. Stop having a boring life.

Are you a criminal?

Not at all. An act of trespass took place when visiting the places seen on this website. However no criminal activity took place. Trespass in England is considered to be a civil matter, not a criminal offence.

For the record I do not break in, vandalise or steal from any of these locations. If there isn’t already a door hanging off its hinges in front of me I don’t intend to make it so. I don’t like criminal activity or criminals and do not associate with such people.

It has been suggested that the tagline for “Urban Exploration” could be “Take only photographs, leave only footprints”

But arn’t you abusing the emergency services?

I don’t consider that to be true. In the four years (as of 2009) i’ve been doing this I’ve encountered the police a handful of times, they’re lovely people and have a difficult job to do. Now compare this handful of events to the strain put on the emergency services when you think about the 18 year olds which can be found fighting and puking all through our city centres at the weekends.

Yeah, I thought so.

Explorers: j3bu, anclove

Only a baby crane. It’s building a car park. I’m afraid there’s not very much around it that’s particularly interesting so the photos are quite boring. After spending a fair bit of time up there enjoying the view and accidentally making the crane make very loud noises as the sheet metal we stood on popped and then reverberated through the other sheets, it began to snow so we decided to head down. After getting to the bottom it we didn’t have time for many photos before the snow became heavy and a risk to our cameras.

The Lytham Quays is a new development near blackpool. It had a nice little crane and how could I possibly deny it the honour of being climbed?

At close to 200ft with no platforms on the way up for a break and a ladder broken in 3 places that changes sides of the crane it was a tough climb resulting in me being very tired by the time I was on my way down but boy was it worth it. Some truly beautiful views were possible from the top of the crane although it was almost impossible to capture anything atop the crane due to the fact there was no cab, merely a small platform that wobbled alot while I was up there so I decided to stay a maximum of 5 minutes.