Spain’s abandoned houses, the star of the first international drone photography prize

Abandoned properties in Spain

12 April 2018, 11:21

The millions of abandoned homes in Spain inspired one of the winning projects of the DJI Drone Photography Award, an international drone photography competition organised by the British Journal of Photography.

Entitled 'Sand Castles (part II)', the project was created by photographer Markel Redondo, who focused on the real estate explosion in Spain following the 2007 financial crisis.

Redondo began documenting abandoned projects in 2010 and eight years later toured southern Spain for 15 days, capturing photographs with his drone in an attempt to highlight Spain's housing problems from a new perspective.

"There is an apocalyptic feeling in real estate projects, as if you were the last person on Earth [...] we live in a society with enormous housing problems, where many cannot afford a place to live, yet Spain has more than three million empty houses.”