Some new photos from Fort Wayne

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This is the first of two photographs of Elmhurst High School that I made on a foggy morning in October, soon after the fence went up around the building, which is going to be demolished soon.

I graduated from Elmhurst in 1994.
 
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Last night, I photographed the sunset over the field on the south side of Yohne Road, across the road from the entrance to Fox Island County Park, in rural southwest Allen County, Indiana.
 
Sunny Schick Camera Shop closed its doors forever at the end of July, 2017. For 90 years, the store was a fixture in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. When Sunny Schick closed, it was the last remaining camera store in Indiana's second largest city.​

The store was founded in the 1920s by Martin "Sunny" Schick, a local professional photographer. The store changed ownership several times in its long history, but the owners always kept the iconic name in honor of the store's founder.​

During my lifetime, Sunny Schick was known for having a giant camera sign on the side of the building that faced the small parking lot. From the time I was a kid until several years after I graduated from college, the sign depicted a Nikon F3, which was a 1980's era professional 35mm camera. When the F3 sign got too faded, it was replaced by a Canon Digital Rebel. That was later replaced by the Nikon D2x that was there when the store closed.​

I began shopping at Sunny Schick when I was just a kid. Back then, the store was owned by an old man named Dana Christie. He bought the store in 1980, and after he retired in 2002 he passed the store to his son, Bill. Bill's wife worked at Sunny Schick for several years, and their son, Andrew worked there for the last few years that Sunny Schick was open. Bill closed the store so that he could retire. Local camera stores all over the country are closing due to competition from online stores, and Bill felt that the store wouldn't be viable for a new owner.​

The store's closing was a sad event for me, and for my fellow photographers in Fort Wayne. Sunny Schick was more than just a store, it was a gathering place and a center of our little creative community. The store's owners were photographers, too. The Christies always treated me like a friend, not just a customer.​

The cramped little building on the corner of Washington Boulevard and Ewing Street in downtown Fort Wayne had a special warmth and charm that modern retail stores can never equal. It was originally a small house that was expanded a couple of times in the front. The view of the store from the side makes it look like three buildings stuck together.​

Sunny Schick's closing sale began on June 22 and continued until the store had finally sold nearly everything, including many of the fixtures, at the end of July. I visited the store several times as the prices dropped and the merchandise melted away. I made the final photographs of the place as the lights went out on the last day, when 90 years of history came to an end.​


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The sale began at 10% off, eventually dropping to 90% off on the last day. Most of the good stuff sold on the very first day. 7-24-17


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Andrew Christie, the owner's son who worked as a salesman at the store for the last few years it was open, stands behind the counter. 6-26-17


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6-26-17


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6-26-17


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The last day. 7-29-17


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The last day, 7-29-17. All that's left is some misc. accessories and a lot of old instruction manuals.


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The end. The doors are locked, the customers gone, the lights turned off for the last time. 7-29-17
 
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This abandoned farmhouse sits on the far side of a cornfield at the corner of Lower Huntington Road and Coverdale Road in southwest Allen County, Indiana.

In the summer, the long drive is all that is visible from the roads. The land is still used to grow corn, which hides the house and barns during the growing season.

I made this photograph back in 2008. Nine years ago. The house has been abandoned for as long as I can remember. Now, it is being demolished. I'm going to post some photos of it being taken apart over the next few days.
 
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The abandoned farmhouse on Lower Huntington Road that is being demolished.

People had vandalized the inside of the house with quite a bit of graffiti. This piece of wood appears to have been painted by two different people. One wrote: "Help." Below that, another wrote: "No" with a smiley face painted inside the letter O.

I photographed it in the evening at sunset.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
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This abandoned farmhouse sits on the far side of a cornfield at the corner of Lower Huntington Road and Coverdale Road in southwest Allen County, Indiana.

In the summer, the long drive is all that is visible from the roads. The land is still used to grow corn, which hides the house and barns during the growing season.

I made this photograph back in 2008. Nine years ago. The house has been abandoned for as long as I can remember. Now, it is being demolished. I'm going to post some photos of it being taken apart over the next few days.
Click to expand...

Great shot, Chris!

I love your commentary and observations about the areas that you shoot. It reminds me a lot of Western Penna., where I'm from. I can't help but feel a bit saddened by all of it, though (both IN and PA).

Keep on shooting - you are chronicling an important moment in time, and it's important that there exists a record of it for future generations.

Jan
 
jpa66 said:
Great shot, Chris!

I love your commentary and observations about the areas that you shoot. It reminds me a lot of Western Penna., where I'm from. I can't help but feel a bit saddened by all of it, though (both IN and PA).

Keep on shooting - you are chronicling an important moment in time, and it's important that there exists a record of it for future generations.

Jan
Click to expand...

Thanks, Jan. That house is being torn down. Here's a photo I made of it last week:

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The house is being demolished by hand so that some of the wood can be salvaged. The roof is gone, so the stairs lead to a second floor exposed to the sky.
 
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An upstairs bedroom in an abandoned farmhouse that is being demolished. The house is being taken apart by hand so that some of the wood can be salvaged from it. The roof is already gone, leaving the second story rooms open to the sky.

I made this photograph late in the evening, near sunset.

This abandoned farmhouse sits on the far side of a cornfield at the corner of Lower Huntington Road and Coverdale Road in southwest Allen County, Indiana.
 
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I made this photograph last week during the construction of a footbridge over Coliseum Boulevard that will connect the campuses of Indiana University - Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) and Ivy Tech Community College.

The bridge, like the one built by IPFW several years earlier across the Saint Joseph River, will be a cable-stayed bridge design. This is the tower on the north side of the bridge, at IPFW. The south tower, at Ivy Tech, has not been erected yet.
 
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This sunflower is one of two that spouted up by my driveway earlier this summer. The plants died in the fall; and the big flowers drooped down, pointing to the ground below.

I made this photograph of it in the evening on the first day of heavy snowfall in December, 2017. It is the first of three photographs that I made of the sunflowers that evening.
 
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Saint Paul's Epsicopal Church is on High Street, just west of the downtown area of the small town of Hickville, Ohio.

The church was built in 1875 by Alfred P. Edgerton, one of the town's founders. It is a beautiful example of the Carpenter Gothic style of architecture, which was popular for churches and houses in the late 19th Century.

American Gothic, a famous painting by American artist Grant Wood, features a Carpenter Gothic house in Iowa in the background. You can see in the painting the similarities in style between that house and Saint Paul's Church.

Saint Paul's is no longer used as a church; by the early 1970s, the congregation had dropped down to just three people; and the building was in bad condition. In 1975, the Hicksville Historical Society restored it to its original state and they continue to maintain the building.
 
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These colorful plastic Adirondack chairs sit in front of an old garage next to a house on State Road 37, just east of State Road 101, in rural northeast Allen County, Indiana.

I photographed them a couple weeks ago.
 
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