Some new photos from Fort Wayne

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Beautiful!
 
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This is the little church in the Prairie Grove Cemetery in the Waynedale area of Fort Wayne. It is the second oldest building in Fort Wayne, having been built in 1851. This is one of my early photos of it, shot on a rainy day in 2001. A few years ago, vandals set fire to it in the middle of the night. Fortunately, there is a fire station a few hundred feet away! The fire damaged the interior but did not harm the structure's integrity, and it was restored to original 1851 condition by a group of community volunteers.

The sign says: "The Gospel: Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. He was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. Do you believe it?" It was removed from the church during the post-fire restoration, because it was a 20th century addition rather than an original part of the church.
 
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This was the very first photograph that I ever sold from an exhibit. I made the photo in 1997 and sold a print of it in 1998 from an exhibit at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. I was still a student at the time!

This schoolhouse is at Besancon, a crossroads marked as a town on maps of Allen County, Indiana. In reality, all that is there is a couple of houses, a Catholic church, and this abandoned schoolhouse.
 
Been a while since I checked your thread, Chris. Hope you're feeling better, and things are looking up. Always remember, "Dress in layers."

PF
 
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This isn't totally new, its been on my website for a while, but I just reedited the original raw scan to fix some flaws it had. It was one of the first films I scanned when I first got my scanner over 10 yrs ago, and I wasn't as skilled at editing as I am now. The neg had some air-bubbles on the edge from processing that I was able to remove now.

I shot this back in 1998 as part of my thesis project to graduate from art school. It is still one of my most popular photographs, 14 years after I made it!
 
Great photos here! I love the light and the atmosphere.

Thanks, Herjulfr. Here's another one from the same time as the old car.

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Like the photo of the old Chevy, this was part of my graduation project from art school back in 1998. This abandoned house had a happier ending than most of those I photograph. A couple years later, someone renovated it and it has been someone's home for the last ten years. It is in the Waynedale area of Fort Wayne, Indiana.
 
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Another from my art school graduation project, shot in 1998. This is the same one-room schoolhouse I posted a few days ago, which was the first photo I sold. That was shot a year before this one.
 
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This is the last of my art school graduation portfolio pieces that I hadn't gotten scanned yet. It is the side door of the house with the unreachable door.
 
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Old family photos covered the shelves in many of the cabinets in my grandparents house. The photo of the man and woman in the lower shelf is grandpa and grandma's wedding portrait. The photo next to them is me as a little kid. My father built the cabinet in a high school wood-shop class when he was 15. It sits in my apartment now. I made this photo in October, 2001.
 
I went to the first and second grade in a one room school house back in rural Missouri. Those were great days. Golly, that was a long time ago.
 
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I scanned this negative from 2001 last night.

These rusty old chains hung on the side of the barn next to an abadoned farmhouse on Pleasant Center Road in southwest Allen County, Indiana. The owner abandoned it and built a new house next door. The abandoned house, the barn, and the new house have all been demolished.
 
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Here's another I shot yesterday afternoon with my prewar Rolleiflex.

Sandy Thompson was the weather reporter on Fort Wayne's Channel 15 News for 23 years. In October of 2010, the station decided to not renew her contract.

A lot of people in the community were upset by her firing. In the summer of 2012, when Indiana suffered a serious drought, someone posted signs like this on a couple of vacant lots on Lafayette Street in Fort Wayne's inner-city.

The umbrella on the sign refers to Sandy Thompson's trademark red umbrellas that she held when broadcasting outdoors during rainstorms.
 
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My grandpa, Charles Crawford, showing off the baseball cap and coffee cup that he got from Coney Island, a hot dog restaurant downtown. It is the oldest restaurant in Fort Wayne, having been open in the same building since 1914. Grandpa said his dad used to take him there to eat when he was a young boy, and grandpa took me there often as well.

I shot this in 2001, and finally got the film scanned yesterday. Grandpa died in 2010.
 
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