Photographing Europe's Abandoned Border Crossings

"Girls! Girls!" a motorcyclist enthusiastically yelled at Ignacio Evangelista, his face red from the heat of the day as he pulled his sweaty head out from under his helmet. The two men were alone at the Slavonice-Fratres border between Austria and the Czech Republic. Neither shared a native tongue and English was a challenge. "I didn't understand anything at all," Evangelista recounts. "He seemed in a hurry and scared me a bit." After some time, the Spanish photographer deciphered what the motorcyclist was looking for: A brothel.

Europe's border towns are known to be hot spots for prostitution. But to the motorcyclist's dismay, this particular border was bereft of human activity: immigration officials, passport control, and, yes, even brothels have long since vanished. Since 1995, when the Schengen Treaty liberated travel between seven Western European countries (it's now up to 26), many of Europe's old border crossings are now rather desolate. While a few were renovated, most of these bureaucratic outposts are fading into rusted, abandoned structures.