Watt is love? Baby don’t hertz me.

Tags

abandoned, decay, historic places, historic sites, laboratory, long island, nikola tesla, photography, urban exploration, urbex, Wardenclyffe

Little geek humor there.

Today I went to the only remaining laboratory of Nikola Tesla in the world.  I had a “I can’t believe I’m here!” moment a few times.  I had a really tough time taking proper photos with my broken speedlite but just walking those buildings was enough for me.

Lately I am really feeling monotone/black and white photos. Sometimes it’s a pop of color that pulls me back to full color but I really love the simplicity and focus of a nice sepia or black and white. It’s good to be the boss of me.

Little side note this happened to my phone while I was there. Only time I’ve ever thought it was really cool for my phone to break.

Curiosities of the Asbury Park Boardwalk

Tags

abandoned, asbury park, birds, boardwalk, carousel, decay, giant chess, historic places, historic sites, old carousel, outdoors, photography, road trip, travel, urban exploration, urbex

My camera and I decided to take a mental (sensor?) health day and cruise out to Asbury Park for some photos. This neat little beach town is half abandoned, half not with relics in stasis or slowly being renovated. It was a lovely stroll and I stopped at a local pub which turned out to be a NJ landmark – the Stone Pony. Apparently that is where Bruce Springsteen was discovered. Had I known I would’ve taken a shot for posterity… oh well.

Ordinarily I try to keep my photo sets pretty cohesive when it comes to editing but today I just kind of did what I felt for each photo. My blog, my shots, my rules!

This is the old casino

Coolest pantomime ever, the clockwork man

The old carousel building

Street art:

Not on purpose but I think it looks pretty neato

Some random things from the boardwalk

Some feathered friends

Reduced to ruin, perfectly preserved, and left to rot

Tags

abandoned, batsto, cemetary, decay, historic places, historic sites, landscape, nature, new jersey, outdoors, photography, pine barrens, pinelands, road trip, ruins, south jersey, urban exploration, urbex

This is part two of my journey to explore the pine barrens.  This time I went to see the ruins of an old paper mill of the once thriving community.

As I was leaving I found a bonus cactus!

Next was the preserved town of Batsto. It was a scorching day but I nonetheless enjoyed the relaxing walk through this historic town.

I found this weird bug – any idea why this thing is?!

Last but not least, a quick stop by an old cemetary

POD: Nothing in the cupboard

Tags

abandoned, architecture, decay, eastern state penitentiary, historic places, historic sites, philadelphia, photography, prison, reblogging, static instants, urban exploration, urbex

Reblogged from Static Instants:

You know shit's bad when even the Indian bounced hahhahahah!  I'm a nerd....  Anywho Mrs. Dawn Haggerty has graced us with another colorful demise.  Dawn what was this room any clue?  Great colors, great shot.

Read more… 2 more words

Chris is too kind - another feature on Static Instants! And yes, I know exactly what this room was. It was part of the laboratory over at Eastern State Penitentiary. This area of the prison is inaccessible through the regular tours. I was able to photograph it during a special hard hat tour. To see the rest of the images from that set go here. Be sure to take a gander at Static Instants. He has many talented contributors and he has a Facebook page!

Thanks Atlas Obscura!

Tags

abandoned, atlas obscura, decay, eastern state penitentiary, historic places, historic sites, philadelphia, photography, reblogging, urban exploration, urbex

My recent jaunt into Eastern State Pen to celebrate Obscura Day was noticed, and featured on the Atlas Obscura blog!  As an urban explorer this is one of my favorite blogs.  It showcases some of the most interesting places all over the globe.

New April Entry, POD: Gold on the ceiling

Tags

abandoned, architecture, decay, historic places, historic sites, new jersey, photography, south jersey, static instants, urban exploration, urbex

Reblogged from Static Instants:

Dawn Haggerty just added an entry for the April mcs and the POD is from her as well!  Standard decay greatness, keep it up!

Another feature on Static Instants! I've also entered a photo into the monthly photo competition so please mosey over and give me a vote! THis is from the set at some institutional dormitories. To see the full set go here.

Happy Obscura Day! [Eastern State Penn Take 3]

Tags

abandoned, cellblock 12, decay, eastern state penitentiary, ESP, historic places, historic sites, medical, obscura day, philadelphia, photography, prison, urban exploration, urbex

April 28th is an international celebration of all things weird, wonderful, and off the beaten path. There were a few places locally that participated in Obscura Day 2012, but when I saw Eastern State Penitentiary was offering an off limits tour I knew I had to go. It’s one of my very favorite places, and as a bonus it’s only 15 minutes from home!

We had a terrific tour guide, putting up with with the small group of us with tripods and other such equipment trailing behind to get our shots sans bodies. Funny thing is, one of the tripod gang I was able to recognize as one of the members of an online urbex group of which I belong – one whom I had wanted to meet!

The tour when on to the guard tower, cellblock 12 (the creepy one from Ghost Hunters where they found the ghost) and we were *supposed* to go to the hospital block but that didn’t happen. My new ESP BFF, her family and myself got in a quick tour following the first one. We were only able to go into the operating room, which looked nothing like it did the last time I was in there. It was all cleaned up (relatively speaking, of course) and I got the pics I wasn’t happy with last time.

To see the first trip to ESP go here

To see the hard hat tour of the hospital wing go here

GIRFLANKEN!

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photography, philadelphia, historic sites, historic places, outdoors, medical, b&w, ww2, german, black and white, ft. mifflin, fort, re-enacting, reenacting, american, battle, firearms, nazi, ss, big red one, 78th, 101st

A whole lotta years ago my husband and I loved to play the original Call of Duty on the computer. I somehow contorted one of the canned German exclamations from the game into what I now call “girflanken”… also known as what I call my husbands hobby; known officially as re-enacting. Yea… I’ll admit… I joined a couple times. It’s like playing guns when you were a kid, except you have real guns (contrariwise, just as when we were kids, some refused to take their hits).

This reenactment took place at Ft. Mifflin, one of my very favorite places. It was a good opportunity to get some practice with fast motion photography.

My handsome hubby

One of my favorites

My favorite action photo

Another Road Trip: Cambridge, MA

Tags

algiers, architecture, boston trip, cambridge, going solo, harvard, historic places, historic sites, massachusetts, MIT, outdoors, photography, Strata Center

This was my first trip to Boston, and my hotel being across the way in Cambridge, I ended up spending the bulk of my time there so my Boston trip wasn’t really so much Boston, as it was Cambridge.

I found the area… odd.  Don’t get me wrong! It’s beautiful!  It was just this strange, isolated academia microcosm that didn’t seem to exist in the same world I had just come from.  It was utterly homogeneous, white and Asian and not much else.

One fantastic consequence of going solo was the opportunity to really people watch.  As I sat in the Algiers Cafe on a late Saturday morning I enjoyed a peaceful brunch of baba ganoosh and mint tea, passively listening to conversations going on around me and occasionally snapping a photo.

Thank goodness for google navigation. It made walking around town effortless and I was able to take in everything. First stop was Harvard and the surrounding areas. (and no, you cannot pahk yah cah in hahvahd yahd)

Then it was off to the MIT Campus. The Strata Center made for excellent camera fodder!

I look forward to going back in a few months with my family!

Institutional Dormitories

Tags

abandoned, decay, dormatories, dormitory, historic places, historic sites, medical, new jersey, outdoors, photography, urban exploration, urbex

A snowy Saturday I wandered with friends amongst some empty former dormatories. I don’t get the heebie jeebies that often (which is surprising considering the places I go) but I felt WATCHED. I felt an urge to get out of these buildings the moment I stepped in.