New Territory

The other day Kaylah and I met up with Brandon early in the morning to go to an estate sale. Like always, I was hoping for old cameras and strange antiques to further clutter my tiny apartment. The estate sale ended up being a bit of a bust, for me at least, Kaylah and Brandon ended up with a couple things but all of the cameras were extremely over priced. Since we had driven all the way to Lorain for this estate sale we decided to take the opportunity to see what the cities of Lorain and Elyria had to offer us in way of abandonment. Brandon and I had both explored in these cities before but it didn't take long before we found some new places to explore.

The first spot was an old church that had been most recently used as a doctor's office. Much to Kaylah's dismay there was next to nothing left from the doctor's office, and aside from a couple pianos, there also wasn't much left from it's days as a church. I took a few quick photos inside but wasn't thrilled with any of them. 

The next place we went was an old Mexican restaurant. We weren't able to get in but the exterior was still worth shooting.

I loved how the neons were falling off like this.

Our next location was an old sports bar. The interior was dark and sort of boring. There were apartments on the second floor but once again I wasn't thrilled with the couple photos that I took.

While heading to another location we drove past a Polish-American Club. This was an interesting place due to how much was left behind. There was a large open room in the back, offices in the front, and a bar in between them. The bar room was dark but the offices had beautiful light and were completely full of old papers and photos.

There was a kitchen off to the side of the large dining hall. I thought it was funny because Hollywood always portrays abandoned buildings as being covered in cob webs and dust, but that's almost never the case, except for this kitchen. The cupboards were full of plates and cups left exactly where they were placed when they were washed for the last time, and subsequently left to collect dust and cob webs until they looked like some Hollywood effects team had done it for a movie scene.

Our final stop for the day was the most interesting. An entire neighborhood of abandoned and decaying duplexes and apartment houses. 

The bathrooms were gorgeous. That black stuff all over everything is a combination of bird droppings and dead insects.

This Maid of the Mist poster was stuffed behind some mini blinds. 

Can't have a suburban abandonment without some classic suburban graffiti.

The front building looked as though it had been used as a realtors office perhaps? There were photos between panes of glass around the doorway. From the outside you couldn't tell what they were but from the inside the light shining through them allowed you to see the images which were faded and water damaged.

I've been in a bit of a rut with my photo taking. I'm itching to get out and shoot but at the same time I've felt so uninspired and overall very bored with everything I've been shooting. More than anything I would like to get back out west or to the east coast or just anywhere that isn't here. I love Cleveland. I love Ohio in general, but I'd like to see something new. 

Photos taken with a Canon 60D, with a Canon 20mm f/2.0, Canon 35mm f/1.4, Canon 10-20mm f/3.5, and Rokinon 8mm Fisheye.