Some new photos from Fort Wayne





Polaroid photograph of the outside of Heyerly's Bakery in the small town of Ossian, Indiana.

The bakery is in a long building on the corner of Mill Street and Jefferson Street (State Road 1), with an overhang that covers the parking area along the front.

9-5-22
 




Polaroid photograph of a rural landscape on a foggy September morning in northeast Indiana, Indiana. The sun had emerged and broken through the fog, which persisted for a short time after the sun came out.

I photographed this scene looking east on the road that runs along the border between Allen County to the north and Wells County to the south, just east of Smith Road. Allen County calls the road South County Line Road; while Wells County calls it County Road 1200N. The farmhouse in the distance is on the Wells County side.

9-14-22
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:




Polaroid photograph of a rural landscape on a foggy September morning in northeast Indiana, Indiana. The sun had emerged and broken through the fog, which persisted for a short time after the sun came out.

I photographed this scene looking east on the road that runs along the border between Allen County to the north and Wells County to the south, just east of Smith Road. Allen County calls the road South County Line Road; while Wells County calls it County Road 1200N. The farmhouse in the distance is on the Wells County side.

9-14-22
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Wonderful use of Polaroid at its luscious best!
 
Chris, I continue to be amazed at your skill. I could use some pointers for adjusting exposure on SX70 cameras, other than just burning film randomly. For your outdoor documentary work, do you purposefully avoid harsh lighting conditions by, for example, shooting the shady sides of buildings, or waiting for the Golden Hour? Also, do you employ any filters on your camera?

Keep up the good work!
 
JoeV said:
Chris, I continue to be amazed at your skill. I could use some pointers for adjusting exposure on SX70 cameras, other than just burning film randomly. For your outdoor documentary work, do you purposefully avoid harsh lighting conditions by, for example, shooting the shady sides of buildings, or waiting for the Golden Hour? Also, do you employ any filters on your camera?

Keep up the good work!
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Thanks, Joe. I sent you a PM.



Pál_K said:
Perfect. Perfect in every way.
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Thanks, I shot it as an experiment thinking it would have too much contrast, but I wanted to try. It worked out!
 








Polaroid snapshots of Halloween decorations in the front yard of a house on Beaty Avenue, south of Lower Huntington Road, in the Waynedale area of Fort Wayne, Indiana. A human skeleton sits on a lawn chair in front of a picnic table, along with a skeleton dog, two tiny medieval knights, and a little dragon.

Waynedale was once an independent small town. In 1957, it was annexed by the city of Fort Wayne, but it still looks like a small town and still retains a small town culture. There are a lot of locally owned businesses here. Lower Huntington Road was and still is Waynedale's "Main Street."

9-5-22
 




Polaroid photograph of an empty space between two buildings on the west side of Jefferson Street (State Road 1), between Mill Street and Craig Street, in the small town of Ossian, Indiana. There used to be a building in this spot, attached at both sides to the neighboring buildings. I photographed it from the alley behind the buildings, looking east toward the street.

Jefferson Street is Ossian's "Main Street," so these are all storefront buildings.

9-5-22
 




Polaroid photograph of a door on the side of the Fort Wayne Metaphysical Chapel on the corner of Wells Street and Spring Street in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The small yellow brick building was originally built as a bank, but it has been a church as long as I can remember. This door, adorned with a wooden cross, is on the south side of the building, on Spring Street.

9-9-22
 




A Polaroid snapshot of a cat I encountered on Boone Street, just east of Watkins Street, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I was photographing the old Wayne Knitting Mills factory located nearby, when this cat came out and started meowing loudly at me. He followed me around, meowing the whole time, but wouldn't let me get close enough to pet him.

This is in the Nebraska neighborhood, a working class area centered on West Main Street, west of downtown Fort Wayne.

9-13-22
 




A Polaroid snapshot of the brick smokestack and a couple of the buildings at the old Wayne Knitting Mills factory on Growth Avenue, just north of West Main Street, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The smokestack used to be much taller. Parts of it have collapsed and what was left was shortened by the current owners to stabilize the structure. It was originally tall enough for the letters built into the brickwork spelled out the name "Wayne Knitting Mills."

The old factory is a complex of several large brick buildings built in the late 19th Century. Wayne Knitting Mills closed in the early 1960s. The buildings are now home to a metal casting and machining company called the Ward Corporation.

9-13-22
 




A Polaroid snapshot of the street sign pole at the corner of Boone Street and Watkins Street, just north of West Main Street, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Someone has made wooden signs indicating the directions and distances from the spot to Chicago, Las Vegas, Indianapolis, and to Fort Wayne's Main Street!

The old Wayne Knitting Mills factory complex is visible in the background. This is in the Nebraska neighborhood, a working class area centered on West Main Street, west of downtown Fort Wayne.

9-13-22
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:




A Polaroid snapshot of the brick smokestack … It was originally tall enough for the letters built into the brickwork spelled out the name "Wayne Knitting Mills."
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This reminds me of a dirty joke with the punchline “Welcome to Jamaica. Have a nice day”. But I won’t repeat it here.

Chris, your in-depth knowledge of all these places, along with photos, is fascinating I wish I had a fraction of the knowledge about the places I’ve lived, even though I go through historical society archives and try to absorb as much as I can.
 
Pál_K said:
This reminds me of a dirty joke with the punchline “Welcome to Jamaica. Have a nice day”. But I won’t repeat it here.

Chris, your in-depth knowledge of all these places, along with photos, is fascinating I wish I had a fraction of the knowledge about the places I’ve lived, even though I go through historical society archives and try to absorb as much as I can.
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I was born in Fort Wayne and have lived most of my life here. My family has been here a long time, too. The house my son and I live in used to be my grandparents' house; it is the house my mother grew up in. Her parents bought it in 1958, when she was seven years old. My parents live around the block from me in the house they bought a few months before I was born. Aside from a year I spent in Louisville, Kentucky and two years in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I have lived all of my life in Fort Wayne. When you're that deeply tied to a city, especially when the city is not a huge one (Ft. Wayne has about 275,000 people), you absorb a lot of knowledge just from being part of the place.

I also talk to people when I'm photographing. When I tell people what I am doing, they usually want to tell me their story or the story of the place I am photographing. You can't get that kind of insider knowledge from a history book, or even a historical society. This is especially valuable in the small towns I visit; since I don't have the firsthand knowledge of their history and culture that I have with the city.

Being from Fort Wayne opens doors in the small towns. People in a lot of the small towns have the stereotypical distrust of outsiders; but as a native-born Hoosier, I'm not an outsider anymore. I've found it harder to get people to talk or to let me photograph their property when traveling in other states. The exception to that has been northwest Ohio. Fort Wayne is only 15 miles west of the Indiana-Ohio state line. To people in the rural areas and small towns in that part of Ohio, Fort Wayne is a lot closer than Toledo, the closest major Ohio city. A lot of them work, shop, get medical care, and even go to school in Fort Wayne; so I'm not such an outsider to them either.
 




A Polaroid snapshot of the old water tower behind the Foster Park Plaza shopping Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It is actually located on Kinsmoor Avenue, just east of Brooklyn Avenue. It has "Fort Wayne - Founded On The Rivers" painted on it. There are three rivers in Fort Wayne. The Saint Marys River flows into the city from the southeast, and the Saint Joseph River flows into the city from the northeast. The two join on the eastern edge of downtown Fort Wayne to form the Maumee River, which flows northeast to Lake Erie.

This is still being used by Fort Wayne City Utilities. There used to be an identical water tower on the city's east side (this one is on Fort Wayne's west side), but it was demolished in 2017.

9-16-22
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
I was born in Fort Wayne and have lived most of my life here. My family has been here a long time, too. The house my son and I live in used to be my grandparents' house; it is the house my mother grew up in. Her parents bought it in 1958, when she was seven years old. My parents live around the block from me in the house they bought a few months before I was born. Aside from a year I spent in Louisville, Kentucky and two years in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I have lived all of my life in Fort Wayne. When you're that deeply tied to a city, especially when the city is not a huge one (Ft. Wayne has about 275,000 people), you absorb a lot of knowledge just from being part of the place.

I also talk to people when I'm photographing. When I tell people what I am doing, they usually want to tell me their story or the story of the place I am photographing. You can't get that kind of insider knowledge from a history book, or even a historical society.
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That is certainly true - many people here are relatively new to the area and have little or no knowledge of it; others who have been here longer seem uninterested in its history.

My house and this neighborhood was built in 1994; I’ve owned my house since 1999. To my surprise, there is just one person, a lady in her 80’s, who has lived in the neighborhood longer than I have. Many have moved on; I think most people have been here less than 10 years.

Even when I moved to this neighborhood, I asked my neighbors if anyone had photos of the area. Only one person did - she gave me some photos of the neighborhood and her house as it was being built. Historical (aerial) photos of the area show it as farmland with rural roads. Nice to see that. I try to find landmarks that still exist.

So the question arises: Chris, does your family have photos of the area? Perhaps in the 1950’s?

My family, perhaps like most, only photographed people. I have boxes of photos taken in Budapest and other cities, but they are only of people and it is only chance that a house or building is visible in the background. My grandmother thought it was crazy to make photos of anything other than people.
 
Pál_K said:
That is certainly true - many people here are relatively new to the area and have little or no knowledge of it; others who have been here longer seem uninterested in its history.

My house and this neighborhood was built in 1994; I’ve owned my house since 1999. To my surprise, there is just one person, a lady in her 80’s, who has lived in the neighborhood longer than I have. Many have moved on; I think most people have been here less than 10 years.

Even when I moved to this neighborhood, I asked my neighbors if anyone had photos of the area. Only one person did - she gave me some photos of the neighborhood and her house as it was being built. Historical (aerial) photos of the area show it as farmland with rural roads. Nice to see that. I try to find landmarks that still exist.

So the question arises: Chris, does your family have photos of the area? Perhaps in the 1950’s?

My family, perhaps like most, only photographed people. I have boxes of photos taken in Budapest and other cities, but they are only of people and it is only chance that a house or building is visible in the background. My grandmother thought it was crazy to make photos of anything other than people.
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My family's photos are all just snapshots of family members. I'm the only one to do photography seriously. Too bad, it would be neat if they had!
 
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