Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
I've seen a lot of old barns with faded advertisements painted on them, but I've never seen one for Beech-Nut Bacon. This one is at a farm on County Road 900N in Huntington County, Indiana. Pigs grazed in the fenced barnyard under the old ad. I wonder what they would think if they could read?
I made this photograph the same day that I photographed the pond and flag in my last post.
gdi
Veteran
Nice stuff Chris. You make Fort Wayne interesting!
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Westland Mall is a small indoor shopping center at the corner of Getz Road and West Jefferson Boulevard on the west side of Fort wayne, Indiana.
As long as I can remember, this place has been almost completely deserted. Most of the storefronts are empty, and only a couple of businesses are still open there. I'm surprised that the mall itself has not closed, but somehow it has kept going in this condition for at least 25 years. The mall is older than that, but that's how far back I can personally remember.
The architectural style of the atrium is interesting. Very simple, but the ceiling skylight is beautiful. Looks like it was inspired by traditional Japanese architecture.
I photographed it this afternoon.
Michael Markey
Veteran
I like that pond , Chris.
Lovely light.
Lovely light.
trip-xa
Established
Chris - I grew up in Fort Wayne, my mom just moved away recently. I remember when Westland Mall first opened. We had friends who owned a shoe store there. There was a decent restaurant in there too called the Epicurean or something like that.
daveleo
what?
Yes, the Epicurean !
I remember.
I lived in Ft Wayne back in the mid 70's for a short while (when I was a yuppie). The Epicurean was a very nice little place. Wonderful MaiTai's
.Chris' work in this area (in this thread) is classic.
Mudman
Well-known
Chris I thought of your style of photography the other day. Moved into farm country back in May, and I've been exploring the small town here and the countryside around it. Here's a shot that I thought you would like from Upstate NY!
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Chris I thought of your style of photography the other day. Moved into farm country back in May, and I've been exploring the small town here and the countryside around it. Here's a shot that I thought you would like from Upstate NY!
Beautiful! Scenes like that are pretty common in rural Indiana, too. I photographed a farmhouse with a rocker on the porch a couple weeks ago, but haven't got the film scanned yet. Mine's from further back, showing more of the house. I like your up-close composition.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Yes, the Epicurean !
I remember.
I lived in Ft Wayne back in the mid 70's for a short while (when I was a yuppie). The Epicurean was a very nice little place. Wonderful MaiTai's
Chris' work in this area (in this thread) is classic.
I didn't realize we had anyone else here with ties to Fort Wayne! The mall has had an Asian restaurant called Tokyo Seoul for several years, but I think it is closed now. The entrance to it is in the back of my photo. I think that's where the Epicurean was too, but I'm not 100% positive; that was when I was a little kid.
There's a barber shop here that I went to see. When I was young, my grandpa and I went there for haircuts. I thought of it recently and wanted to see if Phil, the barber who owned it back then, was still around. His daughter and grandson are both barbers there now! They told me that Phil still owns it, but he doesn't work every day anymore. I'm going to go back Saturday and see him and photograph the place.
sailor
Well-known
Another of the abandoned schoolhouse on Barkley Road. This is out in the middle of nowhere in the southeast part of Allen County, same county the city of Fort Wayne is located in. There is still a lot of rural, empty land here. Of the 300,000 people in the county, 250,000 live in the city.
I've been watching your work for a while now and what strikes me is the number of interesting old buildings that are allowed to go to ruin. In the UK, buildings like the one above would more than likely be renovated and converted to beautiful homes. It seems a shame but perhaps that's not the culture in the USA.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Here is the last of the photos I made at the end of August of a wind farm in rural Paulding County, Ohio.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
A lot of car dealers in the United States fly gigantically oversized American flags to catch the attention of passing drivers. This one is a small used car lot on Sherman Boulevard, just north of downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. According to an article in The Fort Wayne News Sentinel, the flag over Brothers Auto Sales measures 30x60 feet, which makes it quite a bit larger than the tiny building!
Big though this flag is, it pales in comparison to the much larger flag flown by Glenbrook Dodge, a new car dealer on Fort Wayne's north side.
I photographed this place yesterday evening, close to sunset. It was rainy and very dark.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
When I was a young boy, I always went with my grandpa, Charles Crawford, to get my hair cut. Our barber was Phil Luginbill, the owner of Time Corners Barber Shop. Phil's shop was at Westland Mall, the small nearly deserted indoor shopping center that I posted a photo of a few days ago.
When I was a teenager, I grew my hair long and stopped going to the barber. Grandpa eventually started getting his hair cut by a barber in Roanoke, the small town where my uncle lived.
Last week, I drove by Westland Mall and noticed that the barber pole by the mall entrance near the barber shop was still there. I decided to stop in and see if Phil was still there after all these years. A woman and a young man were working there, and they turned out to be Phil's daughter and grandson! He wasn't working that day, but they told me to come back a few days later.
I went back yesterday afternoon, and introduced myself and my son to Phil. He remembered my grandpa and I after all these years! It had been about 25 years since he had last cut my hair. I made some portraits of him and did some photographs of the shop, which has changed very little since I was a kid.
The entrance doesn't have a door like the other storefronts in the mall. It has an old-fashioned wrought iron gate that can be locked to keep people out when the shop is closed.
As long as I can remember, this ancient vending machine has sold old-fashioned glass bottles of Coke to Phil's customers. It was already old when I was getting my hair cut here as a child. I have not seen another one like it still in operation in many, many years!
I have a couple of portraits of Phil to finish editing, and I'll post them once I have them done.
When I was a teenager, I grew my hair long and stopped going to the barber. Grandpa eventually started getting his hair cut by a barber in Roanoke, the small town where my uncle lived.
Last week, I drove by Westland Mall and noticed that the barber pole by the mall entrance near the barber shop was still there. I decided to stop in and see if Phil was still there after all these years. A woman and a young man were working there, and they turned out to be Phil's daughter and grandson! He wasn't working that day, but they told me to come back a few days later.
I went back yesterday afternoon, and introduced myself and my son to Phil. He remembered my grandpa and I after all these years! It had been about 25 years since he had last cut my hair. I made some portraits of him and did some photographs of the shop, which has changed very little since I was a kid.
The entrance doesn't have a door like the other storefronts in the mall. It has an old-fashioned wrought iron gate that can be locked to keep people out when the shop is closed.
As long as I can remember, this ancient vending machine has sold old-fashioned glass bottles of Coke to Phil's customers. It was already old when I was getting my hair cut here as a child. I have not seen another one like it still in operation in many, many years!
I have a couple of portraits of Phil to finish editing, and I'll post them once I have them done.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Here's one of the portraits of my old barber, Phil Luginbill, that I made Saturday afternoon.
JoeV
Thin Air, Bright Sun
That photo of the TV atop the vending machine is great!
~Joe
~Joe
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
It was one of those lucky shots. The images on the TV were changing rapidly, so I didn't pay much attention to it. I shot a few exposures of the photo because I was handholding at 1/15 of a second, to be sure I got one that was perfectly sharp. All of them turned out to be fine, so I picked this one because of the face on the TV.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
The first thing I noticed about this small secondhand shop, Summit City Thriftplex, was the large 48-star American flag on the wall, which is visible through the front window in the evenings. The store's owner said it came from a U.S. Navy ship that he served on during the Vietnam War, though the flag itself is quite a bit older. He kept it when the ship was decommissioned.
A sign in the window says: "WARNING. Due to price increase on ammo, do not expect a warning shot."
I made this photograph yesterday evening; it had been raining most of the day.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
This house has a condemnation notice from the city of Fort Wayne posted on the door, which is covered by an American flag. The notice says that the house on South Calhoun Street is unfit for human habitation. I wonder why it was condemned, why someone painted SOLD on the house,and why there is a new-looking American flag nailed to the door frame.
The flag is hanging incorrectly. It is supposed to hang with the stars in the upper left when hung vertically.
I made this photograph a few days ago.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
My grandmother has a lot of old stuff in her garage. A couple weeks ago, I discovered this ancient Bruno Powertone radio sitting on a once very beautiful old wooden dresser in the back corner of her garage. She doesn't remember where it even came from. Probably something grandpa found somewhere many years ago.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
On the morning that I made this photograph, September 30, the local schools were on a two-hour delay because of heavy fog over the area. I love photographing on days like this, so my son and I took advantage of the school delay by going out looking for a beautiful landscape to photograph before school started.
These wilted sunflowers grew on the edge of a field on Tillman Road, just outside the city of Fort Wayne in rural Allen County, Indiana.