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Polaroids from out West

by Kaylah Stroup June 16, 2014

Well hey there! If you don’t follow me on instagram you might have missed my most recent little adventure. I mentioned it briefly last week on the blog but other wise kept things running smoothly over here. Jeff and I took a liiiittle trip out West. By “little trip” I mean we flew to Denver, Colorado, rented a car and drove around six states including Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Arizona, and New Mexico. We spent two nights in a hotel, one night in a wigwam, and the other three in the car. In the six days we were on the road we racked up a whopping 3,204 miles. It was the most incredible trip of my life. I could have never imagined it would be that much fun.

I took so many photos. 18 rolls of 35mm film, quite a few packs of instant film, and a handful of digital photos. The 35mm I haven’t gotten developed yet. I’m trying to compare prices a bit because that’s a lot of film. There will definitely be a plethora of blog posts about this trip. I seriously can’t even remember all the things we did off the top of my head, it takes looking back through my photos to help me remember because we just did SO MUCH. To start off the posts from my big trip, here are some random photos I took with my polaroid 600 and some Impossible Project color frame film.

I have photos of almost all of these things taken with my other camera as well. I’m sure there will lots more dinosaurs and kitschy roadside things on the blog shortly since the desert just seems to be full of them, it’s kind of crazy!

I can’t wait to share more soon!
xoxo

Its a jungle out there…

by Kaylah Stroup June 9, 2014

Soon after I met Jeff he asked me if I knew about the dinosaurs in Mentor. Mentor is halfwayish between where I live now and where I used to live. It was where I did all my shopping before moving, and I’d definitely consider myself pretty darn familiar with the area so for me to not know about big dinosaurs was kind of strange. Truth be told, I didn’t believe him. But just like the time he told me the glass studio had a pet chicken they let run around (they do) and that the West Side Market sold fruit I’d never seen before (they do), there are dinosaurs in Mentor. Better than that, there were tons of different animals. It was like a mini version of South of the Border and I’m pretty sure I made it abundantly clear how much I loved that place.

It’s crazy how there are still things out there in an area I’ve lived near my whole life that I still don’t know about.
xoxo

fog

by Kaylah Stroup May 27, 2014

One of my favorite things to shoot is fog. The opportunity rarely arises for me, I think the last time I took fog pictures I really loved was way back in 2012. (See here, they’re still some of my favorites!) Last week on the way over to Jeff’s place I saw it was pretty foggy at the park. We had planned an evening of working, me on the blog and him editing photos, but I guess neither of us could resist the fog so we headed out to the lake.

I feel so lucky to live in such a beautiful city, to be right on the lake and surrounded with so many great parks! Cleveland rocks.
xoxo

the BEST estate Sale

by Kaylah Stroup May 26, 2014

It’s no secret that I love estate sales. Now that I’m living in Lakewood I’m finding that there are A LOT more sales nearby than where I used to live. I’ve had some pretty awesome luck at the sales too. Even if I don’t find anything I really just enjoy snooping around people’s homes. But a few weekends back I hit the jackpot. I’ve always said my dream estate sale would be a doctors and as luck would have it I finally got to attend one.

It was probably the craziest estate sale I’ve ever been to. Jeff and I arrived super early in order to get numbers. I got number six, which for some dumb reason really made this other lady mad but that’s another story, and Jeff got nine. We left for coffee and hot chocolate then came back about twenty minutes before the sale started. Since we had such low numbers we were let in as soon as the doors opened but I watched as someone immediately grabbed the few things I had seen online and had counted on buying. It was a mad house inside. The sale was packed with amazing things but as quick as you could spot them people were slapping sold stickers on them. I did manage to find a few spectacular pieces to buy that day but I wasn’t satisfied…

The next day, presuming everything would be picked over but at least it wouldn’t be crowded, I headed back. I arrived around noon, three hours after the sale started, and it was empty. I was the only shopper. Even better than that they had set out a bunch of new stuff. I scored…BIG TIME. I have literally never found so many amazing things in one place. I’m over the moon about my purchases. Here’s what I got…

A raised relief of Alaska! I adore raised relief maps. I only own a few of them but I’m always on the look out. They tend to go for pretty expensive online. This didn’t have a price tag on it so I was prepared to leave it behind if they wanted too much. When I asked I was more than tickled with the response of “two bucks.” Heck yes!

A model heart was one of the things I was really counting on getting at this sale. Sadly the one I wanted was way out of my price range. The next day I went back to find this one sitting on the table for $10. Aw, yessss!

A brain! Originally in eight pieces, for teaching purposes not because it was broke, I had to glue it together into two main pieces so it would sit nicely.

Found this on the second day as well. I’m so happy to add this piece to my collection. I actually already own a matching foot. I didn’t realize it until I got home, it even came with the original booklet that has all the parts labeled. Quite an awesome find.

My favorite piece of the day! Even the little old ladies at the checkout were admiring it. The brain is removable and comes apart into four pieces so you can see the insides. It’s quite heavy.

I’m still riding high on this amazing estate sale score. I can’t believe all the awesome things I was able to get at one sale. What a dream come true!
xoxo

If you’re looking for estate sale tips, check out this post. It’s from 2011 but not too much has changed.

found on the beach // lighters

by Kaylah Stroup May 5, 2014

The other day I spent some time picking trash up on the beach and realized I seemed to be finding A LOT of lighters. Every few steps I was finding one. I decided to pick all of them that I found up in hopes that I’d maybe find enough to take a special picture of them on their own. By the time I was done, maybe an hour and a half later, I had found fifty lighters total. Crazy, right? Of course, I had to lay them out in color order for the photo.

Aside from lighters, another thing I seem to find a lot of are combs. Beach combin’! Hehe! I also find a lot of tampon applicators but I don’t think I’ve reached the level of crazy where I think picking up tampon applicators on the beach is acceptable… yet.

Buuuuut I have reached the level of crazy where I’ve decided to keep all of the lighters I found that day and all of the lighters I find on the beach until the end of summer so that I can take a huge group photo of them. The handful of times I’ve been back to the beach since this time I’ve found maybe five or six more each time. Obviously that’s nowhere close to as many as the first time but it still seems like a lot. Anyone want to take a wild guess how many my end of summer group photo will have? I’m super curious myself.

xoxo

found on the beach

by Kaylah Stroup April 23, 2014

I finally found a beach I can do one of my favorite hobbies at! Mickey and I had visited a beach right before everything thawed hoping to find some glass. I was super stoked because, although we found barely any glass, there was tons of trash. I couldn’t wait to go back and collect it for one of my found on the beach trash photos. I went back right after it thawed to find they had completely cleaned up. I was starting to think maybe, just maybe, they take better care of the beaches in Cleveland than in Geneva.

Fast forward a month or so, my boyfriend Jeff takes me to this new beach he loves that I hadn’t been to yet. At first I just like “Oh, this beach has lots of trash…” then it hit me and the words “this beach has lots of trash” meant something a little bit different. I couldn’t wait to go back and with a tote bag and start gathering colorful trash for a photo.

I think this might even have ended up being one of my favorite sets of these found on the beach photos I’ve taken. I actually collected so many things that they wouldn’t all fit in the photo. I’m finding my 40mm prime lens is a little bit limiting as of late and this was definitely one of those situations. I wish I could have kept building my little rectangle of trash larger and larger. I guess I have the rest of the summer to do so!

xoxo

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first hike of the spring // on film

by Kaylah Stroup April 21, 2014

The first few family hikes of spring are always my favorite. It’s magical watching everything coming back to life. New plants working their way up through the leaves and debris from last fall. Birds chirping and my favorite spring noise, peepers! This year it’s a little bit more special than normal since I’m now a city girl. There are tons of parks surrounding the area I live in but they’re fairly busy with other people also trying to escape the hustle and bustle. Last week I took a trip out to my parents house for a hike and a cookout. As much as I’m loving and adapting well to city life, it felt really nice to escape for a few hours.

And one more, of a snaggle toothed puppy!

xoxo

All of the photos above were taken with a pentax k1000 and Fujifilm 35mm Superia X-TRA 400.

life lately // on film

by Kaylah Stroup April 17, 2014

Just a collection of film photos from the last few weeks. There are a few TIM photos thrown in there. I shot a roll with no real expectations, I just shot. I was pretty excited to get them back. I went to pick them up after watching the clock all day only for the woman behind the counter to sheepishly mutter “I sahry, I esssposed ya films.” I have no idea how she did it but she did manage to not ruin three frames worth, and those three shots just so happened to be ones I really liked. I’m so bummed about it though. I shot at some super fun locations, and of such neat things. Guess that’s one of the risks of not developing my own film. Oh well.
xoxo