Some new photos from Fort Wayne

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Thanks, Helen. I'm scanning a lot of old stuff from my archives that I never got done in years past because of school and life getting in the way. Business has been slow so I'm using the time to catch up a little....some of these are over ten years old!

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This unusual light hangs on the front of an abandoned bar behind the bridge in the small town of Corunna, Indiana.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This is from the trip I made to New Mexico back in August, 2011. This is the San Jon Motel on old Route 66 in San Jon, New Mexico. It was about the only business left in the town.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

My grandfather, John Westerfield, used to own a cottage on Goose Lake in Whitley County. This pier belonged to his neighbor, who kept this chair hanging from the posts of the pier to keep it from floating off when the lake would flood.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This barn sits behind an abandoned house on Washington Center Road, in northwest Allen County. The owners lived in a new house built next to the old one, which they simply abandoned.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This is the Pleasant Township #3 School on Smith Road, across the street from Fort Wayne International Airport, in rural Allen County. I discovered this place when I was in high school, and continued photographing it over the years until it was torn down in 2005. The old farmer who owned it took a look at my long hair and asked me if I was a boy or a girl when I asked him for permission to photograph it!

I was never satisfied with most of the photographs I made of this place, because it is set so close to the road. This is one of the last photographs I made of it. It had deteriorated considerably since the day I first found it a decade earlier. There used to be a limestone medallion above the door arch that had the name of the school, the date of construction (1898), and the name of the township trustee.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I made this portrait of a friend from college back in 1995.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Nearly 20 years ago, in September 1993, Saint Mary's Catholic Church was struck by lightning and burned down. The 19th Century brick church in downtown Fort Wayne was completely destroyed, except for the outside walls.

The walls were preserved for a while because the church considered using them to rebuild the church, but in the end they were demolished and the ugliest most godawful building replaced the old church, once one of the most beautiful in the city. The sandbags in the window are weighing down a tarp on top of the brick walls.

I made this photo in early 1994.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Grandpa's evil little grey cat, Molly, stands on the old metal chairs looking for something to kill while the dog runs in the backyard. Shot in the late 1990s. Molly lived until 2010.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

A view from the pulpit, looking out at the empty pews in the old 1851 church in the Prairie rove Cemetery in the Waynedale area of Fort Wayne, Indiana. The rope hanging in the background was used to ring the church bell.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This is an early one. I photographed this amaryllis flower at the Foellinger-Freimann Botanical Conservatory in Fort Wayne when I was 15 years old! I entered it in a flower photography contest sponsored by the botanical conservatory that year, and won first place, which was a gift certificate to a local camera store. I used it to buy the Bogen (Manfrotto) tripod that I still use every day, 22 years later!

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

When I was younger, grandpa and grandma had a lot of cats. As many as 25 at a time patrolled his 3 acre yard in rural southwest Allen County, Indiana. The one sitting upright was named George. One of the younger kids in the family named her without knowing that the cat was female. George, who was almost constantly pregnant, was the mother of most of the other cats. I shot this in 1994, when I was in high school.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This little white house is on Lafayette Street, just north of Pettit Avenue, in Fort Wayne, Indiana's inner city. There are a lot of houses in Fort Wayne that have big American flags hanging over the front doors. Most are small houses in older neighborhoods, like this one.

I shot it yesterday afternoon.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

An old man's house on the Whitley County side of County Line Road in Dunfee, Indiana. This man's yard was filled with statues of the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph. A stained glass image of Mary hangs in the window. The owner said he'd lived there for more than 50 years.

I shot this back in 2003 with one of the most interesting cameras in my
little collection, a Seagull DF-1. A lot of people are familiar with the
Seagull TLRs, because they began to be imported into the USA around 2000,
but this is not one of the well-known TLRs. The DF-1 is a 35mm SLR, based on
an old Minolta, the meterless SR-2. The Seagull also lacks a meter, and is
primitive in its construction. It feels like it will fall apart when you use
it, but it has worked perfectly the 10 years that I have owned it. The 50mm
f2 lens that came with it is an excellent lens. The exterior cosmetics look
like a clone of a Pentax M-Series K-mount lens, but I do not know what the
optics are based on. The mount is Minolta, not Pentax, despite the
appearance of the lens!

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

A forgotten baby stroller in the snow next to one of the old barns behind an abandoned farmhouse on Washington Center Road in rural Allen County, Indiana. The barn has since partially collapsed. I shot the photo in 2001, and finally finished editing the scan tonight.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

The pews on the north side of the Prairie Grove Chapel in 2001. The church was abandoned when this photograph was made. This part of the building was damaged by arson in early 2008.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

These wires were stapled to the side of my grandpa's house many years ago, when he got cable TV installed. I photographed them in 1998.

 

[robklurfield]

This one and the Sandy Can Stop the Drought are especially nice,.

This one would be great even if we had no idea who the subject was; but that it was your grandpa just makes it all that much better.

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.

 

[dabick42]

@ Chris C ...

I for one am very glad that you're making headway in scanning what must be an impressive backlog of old photographs, Chris !

Your input to RFF is definately a major highlight.

Many thanks for the visual pleasure you give us...

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

@ Chris C ...

I for one am very glad that you're making headway in scanning what must be an impressive backlog of old photographs, Chris !

Your input to RFF is definately a major highlight.

Many thanks for the visual pleasure you give us...

Thanks. I've been doing photography all of my life, since I was about 8 years old...it is my life.