Some new photos from Fort Wayne

church-broom.jpg


Another from the Prairie Grove Cemetery Church, made during the restoration of the burned building in November, 2008. Here are my other photos from this 163 year old church.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
church-broom.jpg


Another from the Prairie Grove Cemetery Church, made during the restoration of the burned building in November, 2008. Here are my other photos from this 163 year old church.
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Chris - I am in awe of your work. You really capture the soul of that area. As a beginner trying to learn the craft I have a question that I was hoping that you might be able to answer.

Looking at your scans I haven't been able to find ANY visible artifacts like dust, scratches, excess photoflow etc. So, my question is this - are your negatives spotless before you scan, or are you using the photoshop eraser to get rid of some of that dust?

As most negs (even the clean ones) need some cleaning up with photoshop.

Also, I read that thread about using distilled water. In that thread you said that you use Kodak photoflow with distilled water (if my memory serves me correctly). So, my second question is do you have the problem of Kodak's photoflow leaving sheet marks? That is what I experienced so changed to LFN.

Thanks and I eagerly look forward to further developments with this work.

Also, one more question - have you approached any of the leading photo book publishers to get this work into a book form?? It would be nice to see this in print one day, as it is a historical record of a place that is changing.
 
Film explorer said:
Chris - I am in awe of your work. You really capture the soul of that area. As a beginner trying to learn the craft I have a question that I was hoping that you might be able to answer.

Looking at your scans I haven't been able to find ANY visible artifacts like dust, scratches, excess photoflow etc. So, my question is this - are your negatives spotless before you scan, or are you using the photoshop eraser to get rid of some of that dust?

As most negs (even the clean ones) need some cleaning up with photoshop.

Also, I read that thread about using distilled water. In that thread you said that you use Kodak photoflow with distilled water (if my memory serves me correctly). So, my second question is do you have the problem of Kodak's photoflow leaving sheet marks? That is what I experienced so changed to LFN.

Thanks and I eagerly look forward to further developments with this work.

Also, one more question - have you approached any of the leading photo book publishers to get this work into a book form?? It would be nice to see this in print one day, as it is a historical record of a place that is changing.
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Thanks :D

I never have photoflow drying marks, but I don't mix it the way Kodak says to. Kodak's recommended dilution makes it too strong, in my experience. I've had trouble with it leaving streaks and sometimes even leaving sticky, gummy spots on the dried film.

Mixing it at a higher dilution eliminates this stuff. The directions on the bottle I have say to dilute it 1 part photo-flo to 200 parts water (5ml added to 1000ml of water). I dilute it 1 to 400, so I use 2.5ml of photo flo added to 1000ml of water.

I mix up more than I need to fill the developing tank, because it tends to foam up when pouring it in the way I do. I have the film reels in the tank with the lid off and pour in the photo flo, then pour it back into the mixing graduate and repeat 3 times before pouring it into the developing tank and letting it overflow the top to make the foamy stuff wash out of the tank. The reason for pouring it in and out is to give some agitation to make the photoflo displace the wash water on the film. I then leave the film in it 30 seconds.

I take the reels out and shake them to shake off excess water on the film, then remove the film and hang it to dry. NEVER squeegee the film with your fingers or anything else, you WILL scratch up a roll badly someday, and it'll be an important one. The highly diluted photo flo won't leave streaks even if you do not wipe the film off.

To prevent dust, hang them in a room that no one will go into while the film dries. Walking around the room stirs up dust into the air, and while the film is damp, dust will embed into the soft emulsion. I hang mine over a bathtub. I have two bathrooms, so no one uses the one the film hangs in when I'm doing developing.

I scan with a glass carrier on my Nikon LS-8000ED, so keeping the glass, all four surfaces, clean is a challenge. I never have severe dust though, because I'm careful. That said, most scanned films do require the removal of a few dust spots. If there's a lot of them, I just rescan the film, its less work than retouching a lot of them in Photoshop.

I have found that publishers are not interested in anyone right now who is not very, very famous. I'm only 36, so when I am old and (hopefully) famous, I hope to get a book published. I've thought about doing a blurb book, but sales of my prints are WAY down, this summer has been very hard...the economy is pretty bad now and no one is buying anything they do not need. I haven't put a blurb book together because it takes more work than I have time for, when I likely won't sell many. I've been taking on more commercial work and web design work to pay the bills this summer since my fine art stuff is not selling the way it used to, so I'm busier than usual even though I'm now poorer, lol.
 
concrete-pew-1.jpg


I discovered this concrete bench along Dalman Road in a rural area of Allen County several years ago, and photographed it during a snowstorm. It looks like an especially uncomfortable church pew!
 
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This abandoned one-room schoolhouse is unusual in that it still has its original doors. Most have been lost, or are boarded up. Jefferson Township #4 School is at the corner of County Roads 100E and 1100N in Wells County, Indiana.
 
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Room 28 at the Fairoak Motel. This is one of three little family owned motels within a one mile stretch of Bluffton Road in Waynedale. Virtually all other such motels have disappeared from Fort Wayne. When I went in the office on the other side of the building to ask permission to photograph, I read the room rates sign on the wall next to the counter. I was amused to see that they rent rooms by the hour!
 
byron-houses-1.jpg


This house is one of the two surviving physician's residences on the grounds of the Irene Byron Tuberculosis Sanatorium on Lima Road (State Road 3) just outside Fort Wayne, Indiana. The sanatorium itself was demolished decades ago. The two houses have sat empty for many years. The government of Allen County still owns them.
 
byron-houses-2.jpg


Here is the other house on the former grounds of the Irene Byron Tuberculosis Sanatorium. I've done some research and learned that the houses were built in 1934 and are listed on the national register of historic places.
 
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Here is another photograph of my favorite tree, one of the most beautiful I have ever found. It is located on State Road 3 just north of Fort Wayne. I made this photograph in November, 2008.
 
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This Victorian-style brick apartment house is on Main Street in the small town of Kendallville, Indiana. It was vacant when I photographed it. Kendallville has a lot of ornate buildings on its Main Street.
 
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This graffiti is inside an abandoned one-room schoolhouse (Marion Township #10) on Winchester Road, just north of South County Line Road in Allen County, Indiana. It is one of only a couple of these old schoolhouses that I have found with reasonably intact interiors. Most have had the floors and interior walls torn out so that they could be used as barns or garages.

The entire interior is covered in spray-painted graffiti. This is on the back wall, where the blackboard would have been. I photographed it through one of the broken-out windows. Poison ivy covered the window frames, making it impossible for me to go inside!

I find it amusing that the graffiti appears to have been built up with different vandals responding to previous graffiti. An American flag has the word "f--k" written under it, with an arrow pointing at the flag. One vandal was patriotic, another wanted to say "F--k America," and another added a woman's name next to the curse word to say "F--k Alice."

I made this photograph yesterday afternoon.
 
tillroad-7.jpg


This house was at an abandoned farm on Till Road in northwest Allen County. I made several photographs of the inside of it in late 2008. It was demolished in 2009. I first photographed the outside of the house eight years earlier.
 
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The Upholstery Outlet is on Lower Huntington Road in the Waynedale area of Fort Wayne, Indiana. For many years, the front of their little building had been covered in political signs, most notably the two large ones that say "Stop Taxing Property." In early 2012, I noticed that all the signs were gone, and the red, white and blue stars and stripes awning was replaced with a plain red one. I made this photograph in October, 2008, and just now got it scanned.
 
Always like seeing your photographs Chris. Very interesting & patriotic area of the country despite much is overrun with so much dispair.
 
gb hill said:
Always like seeing your photographs Chris. Very interesting & patriotic area of the country despite much is overrun with so much dispair.
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Thanks Greg. Here's another one from rural Wells County. This abandoned church actually sits right next to the abandoned Jefferson Township #4 schoolhouse that I posted last week.

wells-cr100e-church-1.jpg
 
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The Hanson Limestone Quarry on Ardmore Avenue, just outside the Waynedale area of Fort Wayne, is one of the largest stone quarries in Indiana. These piles of crushed limestone aggregate are in a pit near the entrance to the quarry, waiting to be used for concrete and asphalt. I photographed it tuesday afternoon to test out developing Tmax 100 in PMK Pyro developer.
 
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