Powerful asylum photos

Inside the institutions

Powerful asylum photos

If you've ever seen a film involving a mental hospital then you'll probably assume they're all dingy and nightmarish pits of squalor. But, as photographer Christopher Payne has discovered, there's a lot more to them than we've seen on the big screen.

Granted, he't not trying to rewrite history and claim that they were full of frivolity and endless partying but he's trying to show that they were often built by leading architects to be places of civic pride and refuge.

He's spent around six years photographing 70 institutions in 30 states, many of which have since been demolished. In 1948, these hospitals housed over 500,000 patients and acted as self-contained towns, with everything needed under just one roof.

The images represent the scenes that Payne found, with no staging on his part. From the patient's toothbrushes, directly below, to their suitcases underneath.

More of his stunning photos can be seen here.

Marc Chacksfield
Content Director

As Content Director of Shortlist, Marc likes nothing more than to compile endless lists of an evening by candlelight. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.