closing a road and opening a door

Many, or maybe most mornings I awaken at an ungodly hour, usually between 5-7 and I scan my emails and social media. Quite frequently I fall back to sleep doing so and my dreams weave in the muddled contents of the (often strange) messages I receive. This morning was almost one of those mornings. 7am on a Saturday, one rabid follower of Icelandic social media, with a trip only a few days away awoke and had a scroll through the twitter feed and stopped dead in their tracks.


moss islands © Laura Kicey

Last week (only because I am constantly looking for such things) I kept seeing different media outlets threatening that Hekla was showing signs of erupting. SOON. While this initially made my blood run cold, I dug more into what I could find from English-speaking Icelandic media and there was a great deal of poohooing over the huge hype being made about how terrifying and destructive Hekla is (actually since it is not positioned in a glacier, eruptions are actually less disruptive because they do not lead to glacial melting and thus flooding and historically it creates also less ash and more lava flow, which is less disruptive of air travel - unlike the recent eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull and Grímsvötn - both of which are located in glaciers and produced lots of ash from contact with the glacier meltwater.

And Hekla did nothing and continues to do nothing.


expanse of kilometers © Laura Kicey

And then this morning things took a turn in another direction and it looked like Katla, Iceland's largest volcano located near Vík in the south, had had a minor eruption overnight which caused some glacial melting and this caused flooding which washed out a bridge just east of Vík. COMPLETELY SHUTTING DOWN THE RING ROAD for a sizable stretch.


sandra and the strand © Laura Kicey

The very stretch I would have to be driving one week from the day in order to get to our first accommodation in the southeast. Panic sets in and I realize that there is no point in trying to go back to sleep. It will not be possible. In one anticlimactic burst, had our entire trip just been ruined? I start receiving a pile of messages from Sandra who had been up for hours and fully aware of the situation. We started exchanging some tweets until she asked for my presence on Skype. I made an offhand tweet about the wall our expedition just hit and added #Katla. In moments I had the attention of one "disaster expert" Gislio Olafsson who I had started following around the time of the Grímsvötn eruption. He was asking me what my itinerary was like and what kind of car I was driving. He was swift to report that though there was currently no ferry to circumvent the area (which was my hope), there was the possibility to reverse the trip direction... which for us proved difficult as we had to meet up with Ugglan on a particular day to go to the Westfjörds, where things were booked quite solidly. The Icelandic Road Administration announced that rebuilding the bridge was a top priority but would still take 2-3 weeks to complete. Our other option was another road... through The Interior via Fjallabak!

I had not even given entering The Interior a thought. It is still a bit of an unknown quantity, a vast uninterrupted wilderness, with no permanent fixtures of any sort, shops, nor residents. Rugged rocky roads that were only open two months out of the year due to snow cover the rest of the year. Road that were dissected by rivers one had to cross or turn back.

Basically DANGER. And here we are, looking danger in the eye. Momentarily Sandra and I thought, well, we could cancel our first couple nights stays and make the major 8+ hour drive from Reykjavík all the way to the southeast corner in one great race and then double back along the Ring Road the way we initially intended. Or, grow an adventure to full stunning size. Gislio also threw in the temptation: "There is a route called Fjallabak (north) that involves a few unbridged rivers (mainly small ones though) that 4x4 can pass...Fjallabak is a beautiful route - passes via Landmannalaugar which is one of the pearls of the highlands." And so it is...

So Sandra and I put our sleepy heads together on this and decided to call the car rental company and see if we could snag a small SUV for a non-astronomical sum. It tuned out we got a Suzuki "Jimmy", which is the shame SUV if ever there was one, but for less than $1000 more than what we paid for the compact car for the entire two weeks. So it had been decided, we were going to cross rivers and go through The Interior. Gislio also told us that they were also working on making the Fjallabak route passable to 2x4s as well though it would take some time. Who knows when? Meanwhile tourists are stranded east of Vík trying to get back to Reykjavík. Some will undoubtedly have to double back around the country. I cannot begin to picture what this road and its rivers will be like to cross, and hoping that there is not much rain in that window so they do not rise any more. Even with some visuals it is hard to know what we'll be getting ourselves into until we are in it. Exhilarating and terrifying.

Besides having to likely skip the beauty of Vík, having this more powerful SUV will definitely put us at an advantage in some spots where we were unsure if we would be able to make it over rough roads, especially in many places in the Westfjörds. This will definitely help us expand our scope a bit which is really exciting and something I dreamed of, but dared not hope for, thinking it out of reach price-wise. Since I have a few good shoots lined up for when I return as well as another temp job beginning, I'm hoping I can glide through the bills and bounce, and hopefully some interested folks will want to buy some prints in the aftermath. I will also make another book as something of a companion to this from 2009 which I made public only yesterday to enter in Blurb's Photography Book Now contest under travel. I am also hoping to incorporate some other media by way of mini-iphone compatible books with images and video from my iphone "notes" I take along the way with Blurb's mobile app.


starlight © Laura Kicey

Lest you think I've been resting on my laurels, fretting over volcanoes and doing nothing else, it has actually been a few weeks. A couple weeks back I actually had the pleasure of photographing Dick Hayne's estate and farm, Doe Run. Mr. Hayne is the billionaire owner of the Urban Outfitters/Anthropologie/Terrain/Free People empire.


once © Laura Kicey

And while I can't share the photos just yet, let me say that it was breathtakingly beautiful and the landscape design and architecture were so inspired. I had just visited Chanticleer for the first time the week prior and truly, it was on par with that level of creativity in horticulture. I *can* share some photographs from Chanticleer to whet your whistle.


glory © Laura Kicey


fall and spring © Laura Kicey


thirst © Laura Kicey


the gardener © Laura Kicey


sanctum © Laura Kicey


white carpet © Laura Kicey

At the spur of the moment a couple weekends ago, I was asked to step in and follow Philadelphia's up and coming Welterweight, boxer Mike Jones for a piece Goldberg was doing on him for Philly Weekly, while he was in town for a fight vs. Raul Muñoz.


mike jones © Laura Kicey for Philly Weekly

We started off by attending the weigh-in which is typically the time where the fighters flaunt their stuff a bit, playing up the disdain (real or not) for their opponents and besides getting weighed, they also pose for a lot of photographs. The one above I liked as it was in between the schlocky guns blazing/number one finger up pose they all pull, and he looked somewhat vulnerable. I also pulled him aside to take some portraits of him in this room so full of men and testosterone, I felt like starting a fight right then and there.


who is mike jones? © Laura Kicey for Philly Weekly

The next night was the main event at Asylum Arena in South Philly, which is a very old school boxing ring, no frills. Jones fight was the main event but there were eight fights altogether that same night starting around 7pm. Fighters in all weight classes from all over the world were there. Some of them didn't look old enough to be in high school. We spent most of the evening in the Blue Corner's dressing room. The main room was devoted to the other 7 fighters entering the Blue Corner of the ring and the dressing room at the back was for Mike Jones and a couple of other guys who had his same manager, Doc Nowicki, who kindly gave us an all access pass to wander around freely and photograph whatever and wherever we wanted all night.


mike jones © Laura Kicey for Philly Weekly


mike jones © Laura Kicey for Philly Weekly

Unlike a lot of the other guys, Mike was not the showboating type. Everything about him was quite restrained and introspective, save when he got to the ring. He barely talked to anyone, there was no entourage, no flashy gear, you barely even noticed when he came and went from a room.


mike jones © Laura Kicey for Philly Weekly


mike jones © Laura Kicey for Philly Weekly


mike jones © Laura Kicey for Philly Weekly

About two hours before the fight itself, one of the crew starts wrapping his hands which is a process that takes quite a bit more skill than one might expect. And time: almost an hour and a half! After he is wrapped, he is stretched out on the floor and has all his joints opened up and flexed.


mike jones © Laura Kicey for Philly Weekly


mike jones © Laura Kicey for Philly Weekly


mike jones © Laura Kicey for Philly Weekly

After the stretching he gets his gloves on and spars with his coach for 15-20 minutes. His face is covered with ointments... for what I am not sure (analgesics? sweet sweat to help stay warmed up?) and then he gets his robe on just as he is leaving the room.

Since I had been mostly staying in the dressing room, I had only attempted to shoot a couple rounds of fights earlier in the evening. Since it was being televised the perimeter of the ring was tightly packed with media and photographers and large videographers stands with sound guys. My first go took me off guard i must admit. The ring is quite high, and for someone my height, I had to practically lay my entire upper body on the surface in order that I might shoot under the ropes. Also I was in a corner which made it even deeper. No flash is allowed and even though it is extremely brightly lit, those guys are lightning fast and even with a burst in AI Servo it is a challenge to get anything in focus and unblurred. And the bouncing... the ring is not completely stable, it has suspension so that when a fighter falls it isn't like hitting concrete, it gives. But this also means that as you lean in, what you lean on is shaking wildly beneath you, adding another layer of... um... challenge. Then the fighters come right at you, fast, and if you do not move they will hit your camera, and even then you'll probably get sweated on. And I did. If not bled on, which I did not.

Mike Jones made it pretty easy on me. Round One came and went quickly. And he knocked the guy out in Round Two at 2:29. A very tidy and quick victory. It was pretty fun to watch "our guy" reel it in and be marched around the ring with his hand up in the air, and talk with the press afterward. When the interviews were all done and the wraps cut from his hands he slipped quietly back into the night alone. The slideshow of my images is up on Philly Weekly.

Also recently I promised a fashion editorial and now I deliver! Stacey had the rather genius notion to combine the romance of Gibson Girls with 70s-flavored menswear with loads of striped inspired by riverboats in days of old. I give you the sun-drenched River Queen

model: kristina s. @ wilhemina
wardrobe styling: stacey appel
makeup & hair: april al-zahrani
photography and post: laura kicey




the river queen © Laura Kicey


the river queen © Laura Kicey


the river queen © Laura Kicey


the river queen © Laura Kicey


the river queen © Laura Kicey


the river queen © Laura Kicey


the river queen © Laura Kicey


the river queen © Laura Kicey


the river queen © Laura Kicey


the river queen © Laura Kicey


the river queen © Laura Kicey


the river queen © Laura Kicey


the river queen © Laura Kicey

Check out her crazy green eyes! Wow. Did we ever have fun and such a beautiful day for shooting, it was a blast.

So now I must be off to bed so I can get a bit of rest in before the trip. I have a deep suitcase to pack and some last minute researching to be done in light of recent events. Please be advised, if you have any interest in such things, will be selling prints via my etsy and redbubble of new images from Iceland upon my return. Of course sales will definitely help offset the new greater cost of this growing expedition. Also for the more passive stalker I will be posting images of where I was the day prior on my "other" tumblog - I have scheduled posts to coincide with areas I've just left, hopefully they remain somewhat accurate, but only time will tell. Keep your eyes trained this way until the end of July and then upon my return I will get around to posting images on my personal tumblr.

That should keep you busy! I know I'm forgetting something somewhere. Oh! Lensbaby like the shots from the editorial so much that they included some in their Sweet 35 Optic gallery on their site! Filter in the optic menu by Sweet 35 to see some more...

I expect I will only have the barest bones of internet access here and there, and frankly would like to just unplug completely for the full two weeks, but you never know when I may suddenly reappear. Until then... bless bless!

plot thickening

With every ounce of effort and forward thrust, I have shaken off this sluggish winter chill and am now hurtling towards... Iceland, again. Not a day has gone by in over two years where I haven't thought about it, wishing I was returning. So I decided I ought to make it so, and, much to the surprise (and likely relief) of some, sans Kickstarter.


sandra amongst giants © Laura Kicey

I am hoping to make it on my own steam as much as possible, not without the company of two of my favorite Swedes, one meeting me there and another half way for some romping in the wild West Fjörds... for two weeks in July! I am simultaneously wanting to be there presently so badly I can taste it and also wanting to savor every minute leading up to it, I am nearly intoxicated with this cocktail of anticipation and desires.


threes © Laura Kicey

Of course this has lead to copious research, dotted with yelps of delight and shrieks of panic... and somehow I ended up stockpiling notions and images in a tumblr, which started off very abstractly about nothing in particular, but has been veering from oh isn't this pretty, towards one day I will go there, and maybe soon and back, alternately. So if you want to look at things that are not by me, but get me riled up I give you: feints&stratagems

Lest you think I've -only- been laying about combing the internets and books for things to amuse myself at some future time – there has also been a resurgence of daytrippery. Which was long overdue. First, my dear friend Irina Souiki came to visit our new home and take a much-needed weekend off. It happened that we were met with a spot of unfortunate weather to start so I thought we might take visit my 2nd favorite gardening center, Ott's.


antlers © Laura Kicey


string theory © Laura Kicey



paperwhite © Laura Kicey


Although things quickly devolved into a monsoon-like fury outside, inside was still, lush and tropical as ever. Petals falling in our hair, vines creeping over everything. And well... there was a kitten that spontaneously leapt into a basket. Really, nothing can top that, no matter the weather. Flowers. Kitten in a basket. What more does one need?



Fortunately, Irina was quick and kind enough to capture my ecstasy at this discovery.


by Irina Souiki

The next day we had made plans to explore an abandoned village near Princeton and meet up with one of our mutual West Coast Flickr friends, Rita (who I'd known for years but only met in person just days before my last birthday - well -our- birthday, as we share the same day).


sunshine state © Laura Kicey

We strolled around town to take in some of the brilliant Spring color, then we made our way to the village which I had discovered some time ago but not properly explored due to being assaulted by hornets. I wanted to wait for colder weather, but I waited a bit too long. Though all the houses were still there are even more accessible than previously, they had all been mostly stripped inside and as well as most of the plant life surrounding them. The one house I had gone into for a moment before the hornets started swarming, did have some remnants upstairs of interest. Signs, construction vehicles and supplies all pointed to this area being developed, but I was rather surprised that they seemed to be set to restore this cluster of long abandoned houses rather than raze them. Of late I've been keeping a tally of known abandoned houses, some of which I've been in and others which I've merely stalked and pined for and those that have not been demolished are largely being restored and/or integrated into a newer larger residence. Knowing how deteriorated some of these houses were makes this quite shocking, many have sat vacant 10 or more years, exposed to the elements with open windows. Ultimately it is a positive thing, but also a bit surreal to see them return to life after so very long.


unicycle © Laura Kicey


j. vinch and suns © Laura Kicey


cold bath © Laura Kicey


bonfire © Laura Kicey

As Goldberg saw a glimmer of free weekend time on the horizon, the first weekend in May, we were compelled to mount an expedition: exploring the southernmost end of the Borscht Belt in New York state. Having done a bit of research on this particular town, I knew the town proper was a bit kooky and interesting in its own right and the Catskills have long been of interest to me for the excess of abandoned... everything, especially huge resorts from the 60s and 70s. Once one of the grandest of the Borsch Belt resorts, beyond what appeared to be a most fantastic (and well-preserved) indoor swimming pool, I was not able to find a great deal of images of other things of note from the location I had set my sites on.


crown © Laura Kicey

When we got off the interstate I pretty much straight away spotted a woodsy area that was fenced off and in the tangle of branches I saw what appeared to be an abandoned and rather ramshackle building. I told Goldberg that I suspected that it was part of what we were looking for... and I was right. The way the remains of the resort are situated is... perhaps not unusual for Borscht Belt resorts but in my years of urban exploration such as they are, finding an operational business on or next to the grounds of buildings that are just barely still standing (or entirely collapsed) has always struck me as a curious choice. In this case it was to our advantage, giving us a handy place to park, though the whole hiding in plain sight has never been my favorite option, not a big tempter of fate.


resorting © Laura Kicey

On the way up the winding hill road, we immediately spotted the main attraction, the swimming pool room, but walking back down on foot we took a less direct route and stopped by the greenhouse and peered in some of the boarded up buildings along the way. The little we saw before making it into the swimming pool room, well, let's say there wasn't much we were missing. Crumbling, moldy, unstable... boringness, mostly. But the main event was quite breathtaking.


Gorgeous Space Age lighting fixtures still hanging from the ceiling, 30 foot high floor-to-ceiling windows flooded the room with light filtered through pines, massive wooden beams crisscrossed the ceiling, the tile floor, still mostly intact but covered in broad areas by moss and ferns... and a fair number of orange and white lounge chairs. Very Jetsons... one almost expected to see drinks-serving robots rusted out in a corner.


high dive © Laura Kicey

We quickly discovered that the areas covered by moss were very unstable as they started giving out under Goldberg's feet. Fortunately we didn't cave in altogether as I later read the area beneath the pool contains the former-salon and spa... as well as corroding containers of chlorine and other dangerous chemicals. We walked round and round for over an hour, soaking it all in from every angle.


lawn chair © Laura Kicey

Upon leaving the building we attempted to make our way into some of the other nearby buildings but for the most part found them to be too unstable, funky-smelling and/or in a state of never-completed construction... completely bare and/or collapsing inside. I know there is at least one other room of interest but the day was heating up and we felt pretty satisfied leaving with just the pool room under our belts.

Making our way into the town proper, we decided to take a walk along the main street so I could gather some of the fine sign and architectural offerings there for a most triumphant construct. The amazing antiques shop at the main intersection was not to be misses - both for its outrageously colorful mod façade but also for its beautiful and varied wares within, which I had a hard time not buying. Plus the side of the building has a beautifully restored painted advertisement/mural. The resulting construct that came of all the inspiring signage and textures is this:


libertine © Laura Kicey

(which also contains a fair bit of Stockholm as well, it should be noted).

We continued driving around up to the Swan Lake area and beyond, finding an astonishing number of what appeared to be (nearly) abandoned Jewish summer camps, one after another down every road we turned. Many in such bad repair they barely looked inhabitable, yet many had a few vehicles parked on the property and people wandering around behind the locked gates. Between the summer camps were numerous rehab facilities and then plenty of homes that were highly decayed, but still very much lived in. A very strange area, not so different from rural central and NE PA.

The following weekend, I don't know what possessed me... I hate NYC with a passion, but I decided that after seeing some photos of here and there, we should venture to Brooklyn and explore Dead Horse Bay and Bottle Beach. Two weekends in a row, we go to NY! Unheard of! Though it would have been best to go at the lowest point of low tide (which at that time fell very early in the morning or around 7pm), we arrived around 10am. We parked at Floyd Bennett Field, which actually ended up being perhaps even more fascinating than Dead Horse Bay at that hour and we walked along the street trying to find the proper entrance to the beach, wandering, foolishly through the high grasses and scrub, into the trees which proved impenetrable. And burgeoning with TICKS. We eventually walked through the marina and later realized that there was an entrance down close to the toll plaza which we turned back *just* before reaching. If you should decide to go, be ready for the ticks, they are apparently one of the known unpleasant gifts of the area. We both felt crawly for the entire day as a result, though managed to avoid getting bitten. I think. I brought a bucket with me in the event I should find some treasures along the way.

The peculiar history of this stretch of beach might be enough to turn any one off, even without the lure of TICKS. There used to be an animal processing plant (as in making horses into glue, fertilizer etc) and they dumped their refuse into the bay, thus the name... later, in the 1930s, it became a landfill for the city. The tides at that beach on Barren Island are such that the landfill's contents and remains of dead horses are forever washing up on the shore.


tickling the ribs © Laura Kicey

The beach is covered mostly in its namesake - glass bottles - from the 30s and 40s, from all variety of products, perfumes, lotions, clorox, wine, beer, soda, salves and makeup, some whole, but at this hour, mostly broken bits. There are also horse bones and hooves, mysterious fabric pieces, shower curtains, paper ornaments (surprisingly), toys, doll parts, toilets, pieces of furniture, lighting fixtures, an endless array of shoe soles, machinery... you name it. A scavenger's dream.


spirits © Laura Kicey


top shelf © Laura Kicey


sea lace © Laura Kicey

We returned to Floyd Bennett Field to wash some of the grottiness off ourselves and we ended up making our way to the now abandoned airport, which was apparently the first in NYC. Though not entirely accessible, we were able to do a bit of poking about in some of the hangars. There were a lot of people in different areas of the field, just driving around, some fishing, some picnicking, others working in the community gardens. It seemed like it was the place to go on the weekend.


air strips © Laura Kicey


cotton field © Laura Kicey

Between the two outings to NY, I managed to sneak in a little (increasingly rare!) Philly time with some of my favorite local photogs, who I met up with at the PIFA street fair, with the confusing Paris theme. It was quite impressive for Philly, though I don't think we were anywhere near equipped to handle the amount of people that showed up for the finale especially.

I thoroughly enjoyed the performance by the group Mucca Pazza earlier in the afternoon - who are a huge band from Chicago that sound like a punk rock gypsy marching band... with cheerleaders and nerdiness.


mucca pazza © Laura Kicey

Very energetic group!


mucca pazza © Laura Kicey


flippin out © Laura Kicey

There were also assorted performance artists - the living fountain and the living garden, as well as acrobats, a group of penny farthing riders, French food stands, many other musical performances on multiple stages I missed or saw in passing and lastly La Compagnie Transe Express who are a group of acrobats and musicians suspended from a folding mechanized flower device hanging hundreds of feet over Broad Street... and overhead. Despite it taking forever for the performance to actually start, and nearly getting crushed repeatedly by throngs of annoyed people, half of whom were trying to leave, the other half of whom wanted to stay for the show, which started well over an hour late. It was worth it and I had some nice people being crushed into me so it could have been worse.


living vines © Laura Kicey


La Copagnie Transe Express © Laura Kicey


living fountain © Laura Kicey


In more local news, a little bit of my personal history is disappearing into rubble. Very dangerous rubble: The Keasby & Mattison Asbestos Factory is coming down. Well, mostly. Almost all of the buildings, save the power plant with the smokestack, have been demolished. The power plant has been stripped of everything save the most basic brick structure and is quickly moving towards becoming office space. My mind can scarcely wrap around it all. I took a walk down to the site last week for the first time in literally years. This one wall was still standing adjacent to the power plant, but there was little else to see. Having spent the early years of photographic exploration here, this site more than anything else spurred so much in me... not just my interest in exploring abandoned buildings (though clearly where it all started for me) but also my interest in fashion photography set in unique location, it launched relationships and partnerships of all sorts. And now it is gone. It feels like my childhood home has been razed, and I think I might be less sad about losing my childhood home honestly.


vanishing act © Laura Kicey

Speaking of architecture, just this last weekend the construct below made an appearance at the opening of the annual juried Art of the State show at the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg.


unritten © Laura Kicey



careful buddy © Laura Kicey


gallery gal © Michael Alan Goldberg

Here I am at the opening! Thanks to Goldberg for taking this shot and faring in an insane sea of people. I had an unexpectedly large show of support from friends, some of whom I had not seen in in as many as ten years. It was a really enjoyable night all around and I was thrilled so many people came. A lot of people showed interest in my piece, it was refreshing to talk about it with people face to face.

Here is another construct I completed in the last couple months of radio silence, based mostly on West Philly... which I find endlessly inspiring:


tonsoreal © Laura Kicey


A few weeks ago I had a fashion shoot with an excellent tried and true team with a new model: riverboat menswear mixes with Gibson Girl romance. Here is a little taste, but you'll have to wait to get the full effect...


river queen © Laura Kicey

photography~ Laura Kicey
fashion editor~ Stacey Appel
make-Up & hair~ April Al-Zahrani
model~ Kristina S. @ Wilhelmina

Happy Summer Solstice all! The next time I post it may well be upon my return from Iceland! Only a few weeks away now...