Some new photos from Fort Wayne

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This house is on Dinnen Avenue, just south of Thompson Avenue, in the Broadway area of Fort Wayne, Indiana. I don't think I have seen a house with so many American flags on display! The wooden cut-out is Uncle Sam.​

This house is in nicer condition than most in this old working-class neighborhood, but many of the homes in the area display the American flag and other patriotic decorations.​

I photographed this place yesterday evening.
 
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Yesterday evening, I spotted this Confederate battle flag hanging on a tree in the backyard of a house on the corner of Saint Marys Avenue and High Street in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The word "Redneck" is often used as a pejorative for poor white people, but many poor and working-class whites have embraced the name.​

I talked to the woman who lives here for quite a while. She gave an articulate defense of the Confederate flag, and her reasons for displaying it. In the weeks before I photographed this flag, there has been a strident campaign on the internet to remove the Confederate flag from public view. Racist groups and individuals often use the Confederate flag, though many if not most of the southerners and 'rednecks' who display are not racists. For them, it is simply a part of southern culture and history.

After I photographed the flag, the woman who owns it told me that I should go to the bar across the street, the Hitch-In-Post, and photograph the Confederate flag they have inside the place.​

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The roundel in the center of the flag has a skeleton carrying the Confederate flag on a battlefield, surrounded by the motto "The South Will Rise Again." Here's a close crop of it to show the detail:

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The Three Rivers Festival takes place every summer in July at Headwaters Park in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. I go every year and photograph people at the festival. This years festival was a couple of weeks ago, and I was there almost every day. I've got a ton of film to scan, which I've finally started. This is the first of my photos from it.


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A young boy jumps and shoots the ball at the basketball game during the 2015 Three Rivers Festival while his parents and sister watch. He didn't win, but I don't think many others did, either. I went to the week-long festival almost every day, and never once saw anyone win the basketball game. The sign says "Non-Regulation Rims." I think that means they're smaller than the ball!

I made this photograph in the evening, as it was getting close to sunset.
 
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I am rarely shocked by anything in our world today, but I admit that I was taken aback by this scene. This little boy is young enough to ride in a baby stroller, but his parents have him playing games on a smartphone to keep him occupied while they play a carnival game at the 2015 Three Rivers Festival.​

As a public school teacher, I've seen high school and middle school students so thoroughly enthralled by thier smartphones and the music, social media, and videos they access through them that they are barely able to function in the real world. Saddens me to see one so young already being pushed down that rabbit hole.​
 
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White-tailed deer roadkill is a common sight on rural roads in Indiana. In recent years, due to overpopulation, deer have become one of the leading causes of auto accidents here. They are starting to be seen in urban areas. I've seen several at night in my neighborhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana's second largest city!​

I found this doe yesterday afternoon on the side of Yohne Road, just west of the entrance to Fox Island County Park, a nature preserve in southwest Allen County. She didn't look like she had been dead very long, but the flies were already buzzing around her.​

I rarely see deer here during the day, but at night, Yohne Road is a dangerous place to drive because so many of them will jump out in front of cars.​

I actually had a deer hit my car one day in 2008! It jumped out of the ditch in the background of the photograph, and slammed its head into the drivers side door of the car I was driving. After bouncing off the car, the deer got up and ran away!​

The stream in the ditch along the road is the Little River, which flows from the southwest edge of Fort Wayne down to Huntington, where it joins the Wabash River. The land drained by the Little River was once a vast swamp. Drained in the late 19th Century, the former swampland is covered in corn and soybean fields today. A small section of the old wetlands are preserved in Fox Island Park.​
 
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Two women watch the Super Round-Up ride at the 2015 Three Rivers Festival. Riders stand up inside the circle, which spins rapidly enough to hold them against the steel mesh sides of the ride through centrifugal force. The ride then tilts upward to a near-vertical position!
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
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Two women watch the Super Round-Up ride at the 2015 Three Rivers Festival. Riders stand up inside the circle, which spins rapidly enough to hold them against the steel mesh sides of the ride through centrifugal force. The ride then tilts upward to a near-vertical position!
Click to expand...

Excedrin Headache number . . . ?? Why do people go on these things?

And what happens if the power goes off while it is still vertical? The people would start falling and crashing into each other as it slows down, like clothes in a spin dryer!
 
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This house is on the corner of Boone Street and Mechanic Street, in the working class West Main Street area of Fort Wayne, Indiana. This was once a wealthy area, and many of the houses, like this one, are large and ornate, though many are in poor condition. The American flag on this house hangs on the veranda facing west toward Mechanic Street.
 
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A few days before I photographed it, this handlettered sign appeared under the speed limit sign on the east side of Ardmore Avenue, just north of Nuttman Avenue, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. A few days after I photographed it, the sign was gone.​

I wonder who put it there, and to whom was it addressed?​

I photographed it in the evening on July 20.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
trf-2015-3.jpg


Two women watch the Super Round-Up ride at the 2015 Three Rivers Festival. Riders stand up inside the circle, which spins rapidly enough to hold them against the steel mesh sides of the ride through centrifugal force. The ride then tilts upward to a near-vertical position!
Click to expand...

A local primary school has these at its annual fund raiser fair. I rode it with my young daughter. The rotation speed wasn't quite enough to pin us to the ride at the top, so everyone on the ride had to use the hand rails to push back to stop themselves from falling. I had to try to hold myself with one arm and use the other to save my young daughter from falling out. It was the scariest ride experience I've ever had. When I told the ride operator, he didn't seem very concerned.
 
lynnb said:
A local primary school has these at its annual fund raiser fair. I rode it with my young daughter. The rotation speed wasn't quite enough to pin us to the ride at the top, so everyone on the ride had to use the hand rails to push back to stop themselves from falling. I had to try to hold myself with one arm and use the other to save my young daughter from falling out. It was the scariest ride experience I've ever had. When I told the ride operator, he didn't seem very concerned.
Click to expand...


Wow, that's scary. I've actually never ridden any of these carnival rides I've photographed. They're too damned expensive! At this festival, they were charging $5 per person PER RIDE. Few people have been riding the rides at the Three Rivers Festival for the past several years. No one here has the money for that.
 
Yesterday evening, I completed a series of photographs that I began at the end of last year, documenting the transformation of a vacant former-industrial lot in Fort Wayne from vacant lot to a retail store location. The store, whose construction began in January, opened a week or so ago.

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You can see the entire series here:
http://chriscrawfordphoto.com/chris-results.php?category=76
 
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