Exploring An Abandoned Middle School

November 8, 2017

Fran, Corey, and I set out to explore a local abandoned middle school. This school is pretty rad. It has a lot to shoot including two gyms, a pool, and a huge auditorium. Fran & I had been here once before. Corey had driven by this school a bunch but never thought it was worth hitting. He was very wrong and super excited to come along on the explore. The whole school has really dope colors and its pretty over grown with nature so the green looks really dope against the decay of the school. We tried some new light painting techniques at the pool which came out super dope. Fran and I also played around with his new Sigma 24mm to catch some new perspectives of the school. Overall, it was a very fun explore and we can't wait to come back!

Exploring Our VERY FIRST Abandoned Funeral Home

October 9, 2017

On this explore, Fran and I are driving far away from home to visit our very first abandoned funeral home. Our friend, Jeff, told us if we were ever in this area to stop by & we are sure glad we did. Though very much decayed, this funeral home is still full of many forgotten surprises. The garages have old caskets stacked up and also a vintage hearse. There are more caskets inside and a rotting embalming room (unfortunately no embalming medical table). It was such a creepy explore but so worth the trip!

Exploring an Abandoned Hospital

September 26, 2017

On this rainy day, Fran, Jeff, our new friend Jafet, and I head to low key hospital down south. We set off for a couple hour drive early in the morning. We were all pretty tired but started to get excited when we reached our destination. This hospital is definitely one of my favorites and was happy that Fran was able to make it this trip after having flight mishaps on our first attempt. This hospital has alot of gutted rooms but the rooms that still had medical stuff was def well worth the drive. Alot of very old medical beds, baby incubators, wheel chairs. There was also these crazy kidney stone removal table (that Jeff and I had a comical debate about), and a medieval looking surgery table. Even after seeing it for a second time, it was so sureal. The weather and the hospital put together made it an amazing trip!

Getting Sloppy in St. Louis

September 12, 2017

After months of Sergio asking about going back to St Louis, we finally made it back out there. For any of you that haven’t been there, you’re sleeping on a gold mine. Led had never been, so he and Term came along for the ride too. Day one started out pretty shitty. I think we failed on like the first 5 locations we tried, so we ended up hitting a couple spots that were wide open first. Not even sure what the first building was, then hit a theater next door. Nothing special.

We ended up returning to, and getting in, most of the spots that denied us earlier. We met Johnny at a church that was pretty incredible, probably my favorite place we went. Place was in unbelievable shape with no graff or anything.

After that, we went back to a factory where a cop was sitting earlier, and luckily he was gone. We were driving around, looking for a way in, and some old dude was shooting pics of the outside, so of course Sergio has to go make friends with the guy and invite him to come with us. We found our way in, along with this random dude, and shot until the sun went down. We were pretty dead-set on eating toasted ravioli, so we ended the night at Anthonino’s Taverna for dinner. Surprisingly, Sergio didn’t invite random guy…

The next day proved to be more fruitful, as we drove around hitting place after place, a lot of churches and schools in Missouri and Illinois, but most importantly, we went to Sugarfire Smokehouse for lunch. Oh, and we also hit an old hotel, a municipal building, and a YMCA (there seems to be several in the area). It was a long day that ended on the roof of Johnny’s hotel with two drones and Mission Taco Joint, which was pretty tasty.

The next morning, we met up at bird-shit church, pretty self-explanatory where the name came from. Flew the drone a bit inside, then stopped by a bus station and a church (which wasn’t abandoned before it had a fire a few months ago). We pretty much took it easy after that. We met with Nic to walk around downtown, then tried one last location, a mall, but we gave up on it as the sun was going down and we hadn’t gotten all the way inside yet.

The last day, Sergio went with Larry to do a model shoot, while Term, Led, and I went to a church to shoot. Pretty incredible church, but the most incredible thing was the shoulder-roll/dive entrance from Term. He suffered a deep bone bruise, but Term makes sacrifices for the entertainment of the masses. He only held his shoulder in pain for like 15 minutes, then he was back at it.

We met with Sergio, Larry, and Zac downtown, where Zac stole a few sandwiches from some party that catered nearby, then we headed east to hit a couple schools. The first one wasn’t anything special, basically an auditorium and a room with decent lighting. The last place we hit was a school in the middle of the projects, where we thought Term was going to get killed when he went back for his tripod by himself. We ended up meeting some local kids inside and shot for a little while until we hit the road for our 9 hour drive home.

-Jeff

www.sloppystick.com

Exploring Abandoned Volkswagen Graveyard

August 30, 2017

On this explore, we are headed back to an amazing spot with some new friends. Our friends Martin & Andy came into town and drove with us to an abandoned VW graveyard. Such a fun spot to visit all year round. Fran and I had been during the winter and it was beautiful. But now that the seasons have changed and summer has brought back a lot of colors to the trees, we decided to go back for another look. Deep in the woods are hundreds of old VW bugs, busses, and other models of cars left vacant and taken over by Mother Nature. We were all very excited to shoot so we wasted no time getting started. After an hour or so of shooting, our trip came to a temporary halt when the owner of the property approached me. He didn't seem very friendly at first. He started to get our info like he was calling the police. But after several minutes, he began to warm up to us and joke with us because he realized we meant no harm. He told us a back story to this location and then left us to continue shooting which was awesome. We all left there with a good amount of photos and were very satisfied with our explore. Andy & Martin left to go shoot the rest of the day as Fran & I headed home. Unfortunately Andy & Martin had their cameras confiscated later that night by police due to a failed explore. So their shots will have to wait until after court.

Exploring Abandoned Hospital - Found Corpse

August 10, 2017

On this explore, Fran, Corey, & I explore an abandoned Tuberculosis Hospital. The construction & colors of these buildings are beautiful. We had been there before so we thought we knew our way around but surprisingly got lost for a little while which we had a pretty good laugh about. After a couple hours of shooting, our day was coming to an end but we saved one area of this sanitarium for last. We heard rumors followed by photos of a creepy corpse that is left in the basement. We started to look around for a few minutes until we finally found it. Laying in the corner is the torso, spine, and skull of a corpse prop. It was definitely a great way to end our day of exploring!

Abandoned Hospital with the Power Still On

August 9, 2017

On this explore, we are shooting a halfway abandoned hospital. I have been to this place before with Chris and Fran but most recently, Fran took our friends Jeff and Sergio. This place is just amazing. Some floors have power still on. That gives it a pretty creppy vibe while other floors look like a fire broke out. To our surprise, even some parts of the burnt down sections still had power running. There is a really dope surgery wing with medical lights and an X-ray machine that still turns on. This is definitely one of my most favorite spots to explore!

Abandoned Atlanta 1996 Olympic's Tennis Court - Now Demolished

August 9, 2017

On this explore, we are checking out an abandoned Tennis court that held the US Olympics where Andre Agassi and Lindsay Davenport won gold medals in 1996. This was a pretty awesome explore because I have never explored an abandoned Tennis court before. It's massive and the colors are amazing. Sergio, and Fran went before I arrived and they got some amazing shots during sunset. Fran took me the next day so I could experience it myself. Took us a while to get in the second time around because of a lingering car where you would enter, but it was definitely worth the wait.

Abandoned Farm Prison in Texas

August 8, 2017

We recently just went to texas to shoot a few spots, one being this awesome farm prison. This was a spot none of us have been to so we were pretty excited to shoot something new. We parked the car and started trekking through a hot ass cornfield to get to the prison. As we are walking, it's getting hotter and hotter with each step, but we all sucked it up and finally reached our destination. The place was pretty dope from the outside so we had high hopes for what was inside. As we were walking around, I'm seeing more and more wasps which start to freak me out because I'm highly allergic and forgot to mention that to Fran or Jeff. I pulled myself together and we start shooting. Everything is going well, we are getting good footage, and thankful no wasp attacks. Jeff meets up with us a little later to inform us a man on a tractor is circling the property. We doubt he will come inside, so we don't pay much mind. This place had a lot more than what we expected. A couple wasps landed on me which prompted me to run like a scaredy cat but aside from that, this was a super successful trip none the less.

PlayBoy Mansion

July 3, 2017

Today @sloppystick, @wire_atl, and @Frantastic420 explore a once epic playboy mansion. It has a really dope indoor pool that has a playboy symbol in the shallow end. This place has gotten trashed lately but it was still cool to come and take some photos. A quick story about it from what we read online was the owner of the property owned a strip club and put a hit out on his wife's lover. The person he hired for the murder was an undercover cop. It's a pretty wild background story of this place. I couldn't imagine the parties that went down here. The pool was definitely the main attraction to this house. Every other room in the entire place was trashed pretty bad. Check out the video we put together and also some of the photos below.