Some new photos from Fort Wayne

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This barn sits behind the farmhouse at the end of the long driveway that I posted a photo of earlier.
 
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This outhouse at the abandoned sheep farm outside Fort Wayne is a Two-Seater! The holes are side-by side on a single wooden bench, no privacy!
 
Hey Chris, I'm liking these recent pictures of yours. A bit different from the shots of buildings, a series that you posted for a while.
 
Chris, I love this photo, light is just perfect!!!

Chriscrawfordphoto said:
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I wonder who slept on this mattress? It was in one of the upstairs bedrooms of an abandoned farmhouse at the corner of Airport Expressway and Coverdale Road, near Fort Wayne International Airport, in southwest Allen County, Indiana. I made this one in 2008, and the house was demolished in 2011.
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FrankS said:
Hey Chris, I'm liking these recent pictures of yours. A bit different from the shots of buildings, a series that you posted for a while.
Click to expand...

Thanks Frank. In the last couple of years, I have spent more time photographing in the city of Fort Wayne, rather than in the small towns and rural areas that I had concentrated on in earlier years. After I moved back to Indiana from Santa Fe at the end of 2007, I picked back up my "forgotten Indiana" project and continued exploring rural areas of northeast Indiana.

That ended a couple years ago when my old car began falling apart. I went a year without a reliable car because mine broke down so often, and I was afraid to drive it outside the city. Last summer, I was able to replace my ancient car, which I had driven for nearly 10 years, with a very nicely kept Crown Victoria. I drove it to New Mexico last summer and when I got back, I kept working on my Fort Wayne photos, which I started because I couldn't drive my junker too far...but I was interested in stuff I had overlooked here, and kept working on it.

Two things recently happened that got me posting rural photos again. I finished my MA, and found myself with a big backlog of negatives that I made during the years I as back in school that I had not had time to scan and edit, and I had lots of free time! So, I have been scanning all those negs, more than 350 rolls, that piled up when I was too busy reading history books to edit photos, and I began photographing outside the city again, since I have a reliable car again. Some of the photos I'm posting here now are from the last few years, like the Sheep Farm stuff, which is from the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009. Some are brand new, like the photos of the fog from the 4th and 5th of this month.

I still have A LOT of film to scan and edit, so lots more photos are on the way, and I am still shooting new stuff. Stay tuned!
 
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The night before I made this photograph, there was a freezing rain that coated most of the Fort Wayne area with ice. These thistles were on the edge of the field on Yohne Road in southwest Allen County where the group of trees that I photographed many times had stood.
 
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This old recliner sat in the living room of an abandoned farmhouse at the corner of Airport Expressway and Coverdale Road, near Fort Wayne International Airport, in southwest Allen County, Indiana. There were a couple of cigarette packs on the floor next to the chair!
 
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A "Vote For Jesus" t-shirt hangs alongside other religious shirts, an American flag, and a "Support Our Troops" banner in the front window of The Treasure Chest Thrift Shop on Main Street in the small town of Kendallville, Indiana.
 
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The Pure Sealed Dairy sits abandoned on Bass Road, just outside Fort Wayne, Indiana. This is the loft in the big barn, whose high vaulted roof has the dairy's name spelled out in the shingles. The interior was so dark that I could barely see at first. This photograph required a five minute exposure on Fuji Acros!
 
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In early 2008, arsonists set fire to the little church in the Prairie Grove Cemetery in the Waynedale area of Fort Wayne, Indiana. The workers who restored the damaged building pushed the pews to one side to allow removal of the carpet. The box on the pews is full of plastic letters used on the sign that hung on the front of the church. This church, built in 1851, is the second oldest building in the county!
 
Did they get the arsonists? Setting fire to a church is something I don't get even though I am atheist.
The overall feel of your empty house pictures work very well with your landscape and of course your puppet photos.

Dominik
 
DominikDUK said:
Did they get the arsonists? Setting fire to a church is something I don't get even though I am atheist.
The overall feel of your empty house pictures work very well with your landscape and of course your puppet photos.

Dominik
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I don't think the people who did it were ever caught. The building was not being used when the fire was started. The last congregation to use it closed several years earlier, so the building just sat empty. It is in a cemetery, and the cemetery's staff maintained the building. The vandals probably just saw it as an old abandoned building rather than as a church.
 
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