Tag:

Archive

Salton Sea of the Midwest // on film

by Kaylah Stroup

Back in March Jeff, Jason and I discovered a former vacation spot beside a lake that was full of abandoned trailers. That day I shot with both my pentax k1000 and my 60D (…and my land camera because what can I say, I apparently love to juggle cameras.) I posted the digital photos right away (see here) but just recently got the film from that day developed. I wasn’t 100% positive I would share these since I already posted photos of this place but the film gives off a whole different vibe than the digital images. The film photos are so much grittier and while I don’t necessarily think that is accurate to how this place actually felt, it sure does look good!

 
I’m looking forward to getting back here some time this summer and seeing it all grown up and green.
xoxo

All of the photos above were taken with a Canon T2 and Fujifilm 35mm Superia X-TRA 400.

0 FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrRedditEmail

a walk in the park

by Kaylah Stroup
Last week Jeff and I woke up early to take a hopefully foggy walk along one of the trails in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I’m honestly not one for hikes in the park. I don’t like walking along trails. I want to go off and look for mushrooms, skulls, and other things you almost never find along the beaten path. This walk though, it was perfect. It wasn’t quite as foggy as we’d hoped but it was still absolutely gorgeous. The temperature couldn’t have been better, there weren’t many other people, I saw some dogs (very important, clearly) and I am just beyond pleased with my photos. I don’t care what anyone says, Ohio is beautiful.

The whole time we were out I was collection plants to press. I’ve pressed a lot of the common plants we have here so when I press more of those I try to find ones with interesting patterns on the leaves. I spotted some tiny leaves early in the hike that I thought looked really interesting from standing height but when I bent down to pick them I realized there wasn’t a pattern on the leaves, it was dew! Needless to say I spent the rest of the hike with my eyes scanning everything for more dew to photograph. Every time I start to think about selling my macro lens I take a shot like the two above and realize how silly
that would be.

On the way back to the car I was starting to get crabby. We walked for what I felt was too long (told you, I’m not necessarily fond of trails, especially ones that don’t loop) and it was getting really hot really fast. Then we started seeing turtles… lots and lots of turtles. Just chilling in the sun, soaking up those rays. It’s basically a fact you can’t be crabby when turtles are out looking so darn cute. I mean just look at that little dummy with his legs all sprawled out.

Despite me being a total whiner when I’m hot and tired, it was one of the best mornings in a long time. Totally worth getting up at 4:45am for!  I want more mornings like this.
xoxo

0 FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrRedditEmail

It’s the little things…

by Kaylah Stroup
My absolute favorite thing about spring time? BABY ANIMALS.

I’ve been living in the city for around a year and half now, and honestly couldn’t imagine living anywhere else but there will always be a part of me that loves the country. Along those same lines, I love shooting abandoned buildings, and gritty city stuff but nature photography will probably always be my favorite. Last weekend I got the chance to get my knees dirty and shoot a few small critters, including a very tiny painted turtle, a newborn flying squirrel, and two feisty snakes.

Above is one of my dad’s flying squirrel babies.This is at about a week old, they were born on the 24th of April. It’s incredible to see one of these little things so…fresh. Not only are the membranes it uses to glide see-through but so is the majority of his body. It’s just so strange to imagine this tiny fur-less thing will grow into this. Nature is wild, y’all!

I already feel like I have my dream job. But I think if there was a dream job v2.0 for me, it would be to be an animal photographer. You know what I really want to do? I want to shoot for zooborns! Just baby animals in front of my camera all day, every day with lots of snuggles thrown in there too, of course!
xoxo

0 FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrRedditEmail

Propagating – an update!

by Kaylah Stroup
It was around this time last month I posted about the succulents I was propagating. See here. I’ve been thinking about posting an update but kept putting it off because I didn’t think they had grown too much. I just took a peek back at that first post and I think it’s kind of hilarious how I was so excited about that little tiny growth. Now they’re starting to look like bonafide plants! They are seriously WAY. TOO. CUTE right now. Take a look…

Below are the stems of the original plants, which seem to be really growing well too. Most of the stems actually have multiple babies growing.

(cuttings from the tops of the original plants)
I’m pretty darn excited, if you haven’t noticed. Every single one of the smaller leaves has shown some growth, some slower than others. The larger leaves seem to be growing a lot slower with the most recent actually only growing roots in the last week. Not all of them have grown something yet but I still have hope for them yet.
Here’s to hoping they keep on growing! And boy, oh boy am I going to have a lot of plants if they do…
xoxo
Recommended reading if you’re looking to get started –
â–´ Propagating Succulents on Needles + Leaves
â–´ How to Propagate from Succulent Leaf Cuttings on Snapguide
â–´ How to Propagate Succulents from Leaves on Succulents + Sunshine
â–´ How-To: Propagating Succulents on Terrain

0 FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrRedditEmail

on the tracks // on film

by Kaylah Stroup
The weather around these parts is finally warming up – and actually staying warm which means I’m getting back to being outside every single chance I get. (I’m actually sitting on my deck typing this right now. I love sunshiiiiiine!) Twice last week I spent the day roaming the tracks with Jeff, and friends, one day on the East side and the other on the West. It was super fun, maybe a bit nerve wracking but an exciting adventure none-the-less.

I’d fallen back into the habit of ignoring my film cameras. It’s so easy to do. I’m trying to hard to get back into the swing of things so on both days we went out I only carried my Canon T2. Ive been spoiled by digital cameras, it’s such a pain not being able to see my photos right away. It’s frustrating when everyone is comparing shots and I have to wait a few days just to see if anything will come out, let alone a good shot. It was all worth it though because I loved nearly everything I shot those two days.

The side of the tracks is a treasure trove of random things. There was garbage, a creepy baby doll, a copy of The Fast & The Furious (which is a favorite of both mine and Jasons!),  and oodles of bones. I even managed to find a near perfect cat skull. It was completely clean sans the puddle scum from where I grabbed it. Hot water and a little bit of soap and it’s already in my display case. We also found a vacuum. If you recall a month or so ago we had found another vacuum in front of an abandoned cottage and I got a shot of Jason vacuuming with it (seen in this post.) As soon as I saw this one I was like “JASON, You HAVE TO vacuum!” Thus my “urban vacuuming” series was born. Haha. I wish I was kidding but I am really pumped to get more photos of him vacuuming because you know we’ll find more.
xoxo

All of the photos above were taken with a Canon T2 and Fujifilm 35mm Superia X-TRA 400.

0 FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrRedditEmail

30 days of biking recap

by Kaylah Stroup

Today’s ride will wrap up 30 days of biking. I did it, I rode every single day! Rain, snow(!?), and sunshine. Some days I biked in shorts and a t-shirt, there were others I wore two pairs of pants, my winter jacket, gloves and a hat. I rode a total of 175 miles, not including today’s ride obviously.It was an interesting month for sure, and not just because of the weather. In the middle of the month there was actually a bit of a mishap. Long story short, while riding with three of my friends we were attacked and I was ripped off my bike by some “tough guy” trying to steal my backpack. I actually wrote a long blog post about it that is still sitting in my drafts because it was just too raw, too full of emotion. It was traumatic and I’m still not positive I want to talk about it. All that matters now is that we’re all okay, they weren’t able to steal anything from us, and that I didn’t let it stop me from getting back on my bike. The next few days were tough, I didn’t want to ride. But for some darn reason my commitment to 30 days of biking was too strong to break. I was back in the saddle the next morning, and have been every day since. Booyah! You can’t steal my backpack or my fun, ya turd.

On a lighter note, it felt SO good to ride everyday. I don’t know that my body actually looks any different but I certainly feel like it does. I feel so strong. If there’s one part of my body I’ve struggled with it’s been my thighs. I’ve always hated the way they look when I’m sitting, how they flatten out and look a billion times bigger. Sitting in shorts I’d always be on my tip toes so my thigh wouldn’t be completely flat. But you guys, my thighs are sexy. I don’t care how big they are now. They’re strong. They’re made of muscle. I’m proud of them.

30 consecutive days of biking was a bit stressful for me just because I was watching the weather like a hawk and that’s something I never do. There were days I’d see it was going to rain in the evening so I’d rush out in the morning when I didn’t really want to ride and do a few obligatory miles only for it not to end up raining later in the day. I feel like I may have possibly gotten more miles in this month if I hadn’t been worrying about squeezing in a bike ride at a certain time and just went with the flow, if that makes sense.

30 days of biking, I love/hate you. You kept me on my bike when I didn’t want to do be, which in this case was the best thing for me. I’m glad April is over but I’m already looking forward to doing it again next year!
xoxo

0 FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrRedditEmail

Skull Pouch Update!

by Kaylah Stroup
Today’s the day! My second set of limited edition pouches made from custom printed fabric are available. Like I mentioned in my behind the scenes post, the skull pouch from the last batch was the first to sell out so I decided to do a whole collection of them. I photographed a bunch of different photos of skulls in my collection in various different layouts and ended up choosing five photos to get printed. There are four ‘standard sized’ pouches (6×3.5 inches) and one ‘coin pouch’ (5×3.5 inches) in this collection.

I don’t think I can choose a favorite from the bunch but I am pretty darn fond of the coyote skull pouch. I actually blogged about this skull shortly after I finished cleaning it (see here). I think it’s neat to have a bit of a profile available on this one. I pride myself on knowing that everything in my collection was cleaned by me. I just wish I would have done a better job documenting the rest of them. It’s crazy how quickly memories fade. There are times I have to double check what a skull was before answering a question about it. So, I just think it’s really neat to be able to look back and see so much about the coyote and where he came from. Plus I still have the scar from cleaning that guy! He’s a special one.

The pouches are available for purchase here. The last collection sold out in exactly one hour. I made quite a few more than the last batch, but I still wouldn’t hesitate if you’re interested in grabbing one. Once these ones are gone, they won’t be restocked and the fabric won’t be reprinted.

I totally understand skulls, and teeth aren’t every one’s cup of tea! Don’t worry, I will definitely have ‘normal’ pouches in the future. As always, if you have any suggestions for what you’d like to see in a future collection just let me know!
xoxo

0 FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrRedditEmail

behind the scenes

by Kaylah Stroup
The very first pouch to sell out of my last collection was the skull pouch. I love skulls, of course, but I was nervous about that pouch for two reasons. First, I wasn’t sure how it would look printed. I was worried the details would just get washed out. Then I wasn’t positive other people liked skulls, or at least liked them enough to want a cute little pouch with them on it. Well, guess it was good I trusted my gut because apparently skulls are pretty cool.

I had whole bunch of really great ideas for my next batch of pouches but after seeing the success of the skull pouch I decided to run with it. I photographed a bunch of different skulls from my collection laid out in different ways and ended up choosing five different photos to get printed on fabric.

To be honest, I wasn’t crazy about the fabric when it arrived. I suppose I was just nervous because after cutting it and getting it all sew up…I AM IN LOVE. These babies are so pretty. No product shots today though, just a bunch of behind the scene photos from these past few weeks while working on them.

As you can see, Professor was quite the little helper. I had taken the glass top off my desk and moved it onto the floor to photograph the skulls. It’s easier to control the lighting if I can actually move the whole surface I’m working on. But being on the floor meant I couldn’t walk away from what I was doing because some nosy little kitty would come by, sniff everything, then plop down to take a nap. Lil’ guy is lucky he’s so darn cute.

The pouches will be available for purchase on Wednesday, April 29th at 8:30am EDT. On Wednesday morning I’ll be sharing a photos of the finished products as well as a link to the shop. (It’s the same link as before if you’re someone who wants to have it open and refreshing!) Can’t wait to share the finish product!!!
xoxo

0 FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrRedditEmail

It’s the little things…

by Kaylah Stroup
like finally getting organized!!!

I may collect a lot of things but I do have one thing going for me – I’m organized...for the most part. I like for things to be in their place, and do my best to keep things around the house neat. Honestly, I can’t even stand to have messy closets. Out of sight out of mind doesn’t work for me. I know there is a mess lurking behind that door and I have to deal with it. Something that has been pestering me for years and years was the fact that all my photos were just in boxes. It was ugly, I couldn’t look through them, and it took up a lot of space.

These last few weeks I’ve been tackling that issue one photo album at a time. I’ve got most of my 35mm prints organized and in albums. Thanks to an estate sale I have albums for all my land camera photos. I’ve had instax mini albums in my amazon wishlist for a really long time but only recently pulled the trigger and purchased. You guys, I don’t understand why I waited so long.

You might be like “okay, congratulations, your photos are in albums” but seriously this is a weight off my shoulders. Getting organized is the best feeling! I filled up four of the albums and still have a few slots left in the last album (which was a lucky guess! I had no idea how many photos I had or albums I needed) The best part is it makes me want to get out and shoot more knowing that my photos won’t end up just tossed in a box.

Now I just need to pick up a handful of Polaroid albums and I’ll be all set…
xoxo

0 FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrRedditEmail
Newer Posts
Older Posts