Most people enjoy Netflix and/or chilling at night. But Adelaide photographer Scott McCarten gets his chill another way. As the sun sets he starts to explore properties devoid of human life, like the mannequin-populated theme park Fairyland Village.
At the height of its popularity in the ’70s and ’80s Fairyland Village, located in the Adelaide Hills suburb of Lobethal, welcomed families to walk inside life-size depictions of children’s fairytales.
When the park closed its gates to the public in 2014, the owners did not remove the mannequins and props leaving the property to become a truly eerie setting. The kind of stuff nightmares are made of.
McCarten was one of the few people who got access to the property after it shut. And, one of the even fewer people who were brave enough to explore it alone. At night.
"I am definitely more scared of the living than the dead. I did have several experiences in an abandoned nursing home that I will never ever return to," McCarten told BuzzFeed.
"And I must admit, I've been known to be scared by mannequins."
McCarten is a property manager by day, but a keen photographer of abandoned urban places by night. He describes his photography work as journalistic, the images aren't staged on site, nor rearranged in post production.
Adding only a light source to illuminate the setting, the photos show exactly what the abandoned park was like after it closed. That is before the vandals trashed the property in January 2016, and the owners were forced to remove all its contents.
Now, all that’s left are distant memories of a once-happy place deep in a forest in a far-away land.
