America’s Creepiest Houses

America’s Creepiest Haunted houses

“To find beauty in the most grotesque things is a gift,” says photographer Seph Lawless, whose interest in forgotten places and people have led him (and his camera) to abandoned shopping malls, shuttered amusement parks, and post-Katrina New Orleans. For his latest project, a new photo book and e-book titled Hauntingly Beautiful, Lawless trains his lens on a host of abandoned homes, which are as stunning to look at as they are eerie to witness.
“My goal with the project is to challenge and hopefully inspire the viewer to see beauty in even some of the most grotesque things that we see,” Lawless tells mental_floss. “It’s been an ongoing theme with most of the projects that shows a different perspective of America that exemplifies some of America’s greatest ills.”

Regular readers are likely familiar with the work of photographer Seph Lawless, whose hauntingly gorgeous images of abandoned malls and amusement parks have been regularly featured on the site. In keeping with his interest in forgotten places, Lawless recently paid a visit to New Orleans to document the city, and its people, a full decade after Hurricane Katrina made landfall. The result is a collection of photos that serves as a powerful and poignant testament to a resilient city that, 10 years later, is still recovering from the devastation of the costliest storm in America’s history.