Trespassing

St. Agnes School

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I was fortunate enough to be able to take a 2,600 mile journey to Detroit….a place I like to call “the motherland of all things abandoned” lol. Oh my word…I surely was not disappointed!! In 3 days of exploring, I took about 3,000 photos! Whewwwwwwww…busy girl! Those photos got filtered down to the best of the best. About 600 images I felt were edit worthy.

Needless to say, I have only edited about 200 lol. Yea…I’m kinda behind on my editing. Well hey, what can I say. I’m always exploring and gathering even more photos to edit, and I’m a mommy and a new wife and have a full time career. Sometimes I have to cram in editing marathons on the weekend lol.

Anywho, back to “the motherland” haha. I had strategically mapped out about 8-10 locations that I wanted to hit. I made plans to meet up with an Instagram friend Aaron (@doctorhaircut) one of my days there and we hit the ground running! We were like a well oiled machine 😉 In a matter of 3-4 hours, we hit about 4-5 locations. One of them was this amazing school.

The beautiful decay that was around every corner was almost enough to make me giddy inside! I’m pretty sure I couldn’t stop my smile if I tried haha. Words cannot even begin to describe the decay and the beauty. Hopefully some of my pics from this Detroit series, do it justice.

Abandoned Steel Company

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Ok…so, if you have seen one of my previous posts “Caught By The Man “ this was the place we got caught exploring lol. The abandoned steel company! Again…thank goodness the police were so nice and let us go 🙂

Anywho, this place is huge and most definitely awesome. We parked at a dead end street, up a tiny hill (a.k.a mound of dirt lol) walked through shrubs and along train tracks for what seemed to be forever, climbed through a hole in the fence that surrounded the parking lot and finally entered in through a broken door the back (all the while, careful to watch out for the property’s security patrol).

The first part of the building (pictured here —>) was a large warehouse with super tall ceilings and the most amazing pools of [green] water that glistened with the sun! It was so beautiful. I think I could have sat there for hours, blogging or eating a sandwich or writing in my journal. It was so quiet and unusually peaceful. But the boys were trotting along ahead, WITHOUT ME I might add 😦 So I had to quit lagging behind and catch up, before I lost them in this huge place.

We kept walking and ventured on into another part of this warehouse, where I found an office. Most definitely in shambles, but still very cool looking. It still amazes me, even after so many explores, that we still come across confidential papers, just left behind by the companies. I’ve found papers with peoples names, social security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, and all kinds of other personal information…stuff like, hiring records, books and binders galore, not to mention all kinds of other work/office/medical related papers. It’s crazy!!!

But back to the explore…lol. After these first few photographs were shot, we got spotted by “the man” haha. After a brief photographing intermission, we continued on our way, to the offices I spotted toward the back of the building. WOW! They were definitely worth a scolding by the law. I think we spent another hour or two, exploring the 2 floors of these offices.

Check out all of the pics from this adventure, below 🙂

“The Crypt” I

Published on -- by Nina AraicaLeave a comment

The “crypt” is a place I’ve been eyeing for a while and today we finally ventured on out (in the rain, woooohoooo!) to explore and photograph it. Sadly, as much as I [absolutely] love the rain, it does not always produce the most awesome shooting conditions lol. Clouds and sky are uhhh-mazing, but the ground…ehhh…not so much haha. My chucks got destroyed I almost slipped a few times in the mud, my lens got rained on but all in all….it was a fun day with my love.

Here are just a few snapshots that I managed to grab in the complete pitch black. Thank God for slow shutter speed, (Side Note: I decided to label this post “I” as we’ll be returning when it’s not as rainy outside 🙂 at that time, I will happily post “II” lol)