Some new photos from Fort Wayne

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This house is on Broadway, north of Stophlet Street, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The porch used to have a roof over it, with wooden posts holding up the roof along the front of the porch.

This neighborhood is just south of the old General Electric complex, and was once a middle-class area. It is one of the poorest parts of the city, and has been as long as I can remember.

I photographed it earlier this afternoon.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I made this photograph Tuesday afternoon, but I first photographed this scene four months before I made this photograph. In September of 2013, this was a vacant lot, covered in grass, where a company that built dump trucks had once been located.

This piece of land is on the east side of Bluffton Road in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The half-finished wall is all that has so far been completed on a new Family Dollar store. There is already one a mile south of here, in Waynedale, that really isn't very old. The trees in the background separate the lot from the banks of the Saint Mary's river to the east.

Here is the photo of it in September, on a foggy morning:

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

A few years ago, the City of Fort Wayne installed "Welcome Downtown" signs on the railroad overpass that crosses Lafayette Street on the south edge of downtown and another overpass that crosses Clinton Street on the northern edge of the downtown area.

This is the one on the south side, looking north on Lafayette Street. I photographed it Tuesday afternoon. This is the photo I used for a Lightroom demonstration video I made a few days ago.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I have been doing a lot of color photography lately, but I have not stopped working in black and white. Last night, I finally began scanning a huge backlog of black and white negatives that have piled up in the last few months.

I photographed this beautiful foggy morning back in September, 2014. This scene is on the west side of Bluffton Road, next to the Fraternal Order of Eagles bowling alley, in the Waynedale area of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

 

[farlymac]

You've still got the touch.

PF

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

You've still got the touch.

PF

Thanks 😀 Here's a couple more:

I made this photograph on December 13, last year. This is the second photo I have made of this place, which I photographed the first time in January of last year.

There is so much ice encasing the porch swing that it is actually anchored to the floor of the porch! A garden hose to the right of the image area is leaking water intermittently, spraying it on the swing every couple of minutes!

This house is about a mile from Fort Wayne's northeast side in rural Allen County, Indiana.

 

[NY_Dan]

great pair!!!

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Here's the second of the two photos I made on the foggy morning of September 26, 2014. The fog lasted only a short time, and much of it had lifted in the few minutes between the first and second.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This house is on Tyrone Road, just north of where I live, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The woman who lives there told me that her husband, a factory worker, got the "Proud Union Home" sign at work.

I photographed it this afternoon.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Here's another photograph that I made in my neighborhood yesterday afternoon.

This house is on Tyrone Road, just north of where I live, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The handmade sign nailed to the big tree in the front yard says, "Lease 2 Own. $1500 down, $752 a month." The phone number is for a property management company in South Carolina that has houses for sale all over the United States.

In Fort Wayne, Lease-To-Own house sales are usually a feature of impoverished neighborhoods. This neighborhood, where I grew up, has always been a mix of middle class and working class families. This isn't a good sign for the future, but with few decent jobs left here, it is not surprising.​

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This race car, an old Chevrolet Lumina with a wrecked front end, sits behind a house on Arbor Avenue, next to the Sandpoint Road trailer park. The man who owns it used to drive it on northeast Indiana race tracks, including the now-closed Baer Field Speedway in Waynedale.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This graffiti is on the Foster Park side of the old suspension footbridge over the Saint Mary's River in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The park, one of the biggest in Fort Wayne, occupies a large curve in the river on the city's south side.​

This bridge, built around 1920, is something of a hidden treasure. It is in a heavily wooded area of the park, far from the playgrounds, golf course, and flower gardens that bring most visitors to Foster Park. The only way to reach it from the park is to hike through the woods on a primitive dirt trail. The other end of the bridge is at the base of a steep set of stairs leading up to Bluffton Road. The part of the road that the bridge reaches is far from both the residential areas and shopping centers nearby. The bridge is about 20 feet lower than the road, and surrounded by tall trees, making it invisible from the road!​

A lot of people on the south side refer to the Foster Park suspension bridge as "The Swinging Bridge" because it bounces and sways if you jump up and down in the middle of the span.

This is the first of several that I made of the bridge in the early evening last Wednesday.
​

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Here is the second of the five photographs that I made of the 95 year old suspension bridge in Fort Wayne's Foster Park.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Here's another photograph from my huge backlog of film waiting to be scanned. I found this car in the parking lot of the Kroger store in Waynedale back in September. Amazing how many people in our society are proud to have unpleasant personalities.

 

[Particular]

I think it refers to the dog kind, not the human kind.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I think it refers to the dog kind, not the human kind.

No, not here. No one here uses the word "Bitch" as anything but an insult for nasty women, and a lot of women have such stickers on their cars.

 

[Particular]

I was clued in by the dog stickers. It seems that they drove up from Florida. I don't know if that is relevant. I suspect it may refer to both meanings.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Here is the third of the five photos I made of the 95 year old suspension bridge in Fort Wayne's Foster Park last week.

 

[lynnb]

always a pleasure to come back to this thread and see what you've been up to Chris. I love those two pictures of the swing on the porch, and the 2am photos, in particular.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Here's the fourth photograph that I made at the old suspension bridge in Fort Wayne's Foster Park. This stairway ascends the high riverbank on the west side of the bridge, taking you up to the street level.