A small group of rooms at the very end of an asylum hallway caught my eye... they were different than the others. The wooden doors were thicker and weathered, the small rooms had large cages over the already barred windows. Built into these doors were little portholes, made of about 2 inches of thick glass, used to keep an eye for those patients who were in seclusion... the "time out" for misbehaving and violent psychiatric patients.

This shot is to me, like an old man's unblinking eye; the cracked skin and cloudy retina of someone who has seen the darkest horrors of mental illness for almost one hundred years, and is now left to look out upon his vacant home, dark and lifeless. This photograph is something I've been seeking for quite some time, and 25 hospitals later, I think I've accomplished it... to me, looking out of this tiny glass window is the epitome of an abandoned asylum.

Canon 300D Rebel
4 sec @ F8, 24mm