Romain Veillon Photographs Forgotten Greenhouses Overtaken By Lush Greenery
In his photography series Secret Gardens, French photographer Romain Veillon steps into a world where nature has quietly reclaimed the abandoned greenhouses that are reminders of man’s presence. The once carefully manicured winter gardens and greenhouses, built to shelter plants from the elements, now stand forgotten, their iron frames wrapped in ivy and their glass panes clouded with moss and dust.
Speaking to Demilked, Veillon claimed that his enchantment with these derelict buildings and spaces began in his childhood. He said, “I would imagine that, like many people, discovering the decaying house at the end of the street is a memory we all have deep inside of us. For me, it was the abandoned truck factory of my grandmother that I used to explore every summer. When I encounter such a place, my goal is that everybody can travel in the past with me and make up the stories they decide they want to: Why was this place abandoned? What happened to the former owners? What used to happen in this room? People make their own kind of answer. It makes them go into their imaginary world.”
More info: Instagram | RomainVeillon
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Veillon went on to explain his deep fascination with the discarded heritages of mankind and what draws him to the mystery of forgotten houses, factories, and now these overgrown glass structures. He remarked, “First, it’s a lot of research to find those places! Hours online searching for historical clues that can help me locate the location I want to photograph. Spending a huge amount of time on Maps and trying to see if some buildings could be buried under vegetation or look abandoned, for example.”
What began as a simple exploration slowly evolved into a photographic practice. At first, he was just documenting what he found. Over time, his focus shifted to capturing the atmosphere of these spaces: the silence, the filtered light, and the sense that someone has just left, even though decades may have passed.
The series invites us to reflect, gently but clearly, on how we treat our environment today. As vines spill through broken windows, ferns sprout between floor tiles, and trees push up through roofs, the atmosphere creates a peaceful and yet unsettling visual. The images allow a glimpse of what the world might look like if humans suddenly disappeared. The dreamy, almost dystopian scenes of reclaimed greenhouses are beautiful, but they also carry a quiet warning: if we don’t take care of our planet, it will move on without us, leaf by leaf, root by root, pane of glass by pane of glass.
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Got wisdom to pour?