Some new photos from Fort Wayne






Polaroid snapshot of an unusual window sticking out diagonally from the corner of a house on the northeast corner of Wayne Street and Union Street in the West Central neighborhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

10-18-22
 




Polaroid snapshot of a City of Fort Wayne flag flying from a fence behind a house on the northwest corner of Wayne Street and Union Street in the West Central neighborhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I've been seeing a lot of houses flying the city's flag recently; that was a rare thing just a few years ago.

There is also a political sign in front of the fence that says "Fire Jim Banks." Banks is a Republican and outspoken Trump supporter who currently represents Indiana's 3rd District (including Fort Wayne) in the U.S. House of Representatives.

10-18-22
 




Polaroid snapshot of Halloween decorations in the front yard of a house on the northeast corner of Wayne Street and Rockhill Street in the West Central neighborhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Two skeletons keep the rivalry between the Indiana University and Purdue University basketball teams going beyond the grave! The IU player holds the much smaller Purdue player upside down with his left hand, while dribbling the ball with his right hand.

This house also has some skeletons seated at a small table in the yard, drinking wine.

10-18-22
 




Number 20 in my Polaroid documentation of the ongoing demolition of Saint Joseph Hospital in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. I shot this early in the morning, right after sunrise when the light was very warm!

Check out the worker silhouetted at the bottom of the photo.

10-22-22
 




A Polaroid photograph of a train stopped on the tracks crossing Sandpoint Road in my neighborhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Shadows cast by the railroad crossing's warning lights fall on the side of a hopper car, a railcar that transports bulk dry commodities like wheat or soybeans.

Trains frequently stop on this railroad crossing, and they typically remain stopped for a long time; usually between 30 and 60 minutes. This happens at least once a day, and sometimes two or three times. It is very inconvenient for those of us who live in the neighborhood and use that road each day.

10-21-22
 




Two big arachnid skeletons, a spider and a scorpion, crawl on the front of the grille on an old Chevrolet pickup truck that has been painted all over in a matte black color. The truck is a 1955 or 1956 model; there is not a lot of difference between those model years. It was in the parking lot of the Magic Wand restaurant in the small town of Churubusco, Indiana.

These plastic animal skeletons are sold as Halloween decorations. A number of other animals are available, including rats, bats, cats, and dogs. The spider and scorpion are funny because real arachnids are invertebrates; they do not have skeletons!

5-20-21
 




Sunset in the little old trailer park that sits on the edge of my neighborhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The trailer park is called Cozy Acres; it is located on the corner of Sandpoint Road and Arbor Avenue.

I photographed it looking east from Arbor Avenue, south of Sandpoint Road.

3-21-17
 
Looking at all these photos, your town has charm; I’ll grant you that. If they ever run me out of town here, I’d probably fit in well in Fort Wayne.
 




This is my friend and fellow artist Gedda Starlin. I have known her for nearly thirty years! We met in 1994 at Indiana University Fort Wayne (now known as Purdue Fort Wayne), where we were both students in the university's fine arts program. She is an incredibly talented painter whose work depicts the life she knew growing up on a farm in rural Indiana.

9-30-22
 
Pál_K said:
Looking at all these photos, your town has charm; I’ll grant you that. If they ever run me out of town here, I’d probably fit in well in Fort Wayne.
Click to expand...

Better watch out. Fort Wayne probably has a catch-and-release neutering program for stray cats. Ouch.
 
Retro-Grouch said:
Better watch out. Fort Wayne probably has a catch-and-release neutering program for stray cats. Ouch.
Click to expand...

I would hang out at all the old diners there, waiting for people to throw me scraps. In the morning I would bask in the sun and chitter at the birbs, but I am too old and slow to catch them.
 





Etna Elevator Company is a grain elevator and animal feed store on the east side of Walnut Street (State Road 19) in the small town of Etna Green, Indiana.

The front of the company's store is covered with signs for animal feed companies like Purina. There is also a sign saying that it is a post office, though there is a standalone post office on the other side of the road!

11-5-16
 





This is one of the most perfectly formed trees that I have ever seen. It is in a field along Lima Road (Indiana State Road 3), just north of Hathaway Road, a little south of Huntertown, Indiana.

I have watched it grow bigger and bigger each year for more than twenty years now. The evergreens that surround the tree's base were not there back then.

I made this photograph at the beginning of fall. The leaves of the soybeans in the field have turned yellow, though the tree's leaves are just beginning to change.

9-29-16
 
Chris, do you have a year by year or season by season photo sequence of this tree?

There is a nice walnut tree near me that I discovers a few years ago. I’ve made photos of it in all seasons and weather conditions, including morning fog.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
Here are all of them, in the order in which they were made:

https://chriscrawfordphoto.com/chris-results.php?category=128&secondary=185

I'd like to see your walnut tree photos!
Click to expand...

That is magnificent! Thank you for sharing that.

As for the walnut tree, I have numerous prints, Polaroid, Instax, prints from 35mm, and medium format - they are tucked away in albums, but I will go through them this weekend and somehow get them into a post here. I might have some digital photos of it as well.
 
Pál_K said:
That is magnificent! Thank you for sharing that.

As for the walnut tree, I have numerous prints, Polaroid, Instax, prints from 35mm, and medium format - they are tucked away in albums, but I will go through them this weekend and somehow get them into a post here. I might have some digital photos of it as well.
Click to expand...



Here's another project that I did that you might like. This group of trees was bulldozed down in 2009 to make way for a massive expansion of the garbage dump that is just north of the field where the trees grew. I had photographed them for 11 or 12 years before they were knocked down.

Trees on Yohne Road
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
Here's another project that I did that you might like. This group of trees was bulldozed down in 2009 to make way for a massive expansion of the garbage dump that is just north of the field where the trees grew. I had photographed them for 11 or 12 years before they were knocked down.

Trees on Yohne Road
Click to expand...

Amazing!

That reminds me of a similar situation and shock I had.

In 2013 I was doing some temporary contract work and on my drive to work I noticed this … structure … (I’m being deliberately vague here) which seemed to loom over the landscape. I started making photos of it - from a distance and close up. I realized that the photo angle I wanted could only be made from land across the highway, but I wasn’t sure how to get to the spot I needed (the land across the highway was a maze of small farms, fields, and light industrial warehouses). So I used Google Maps to look at the area and find my way.

Once I was at the proper location across the highway for my photos, I noticed that the little road I was on, which was more of a paved path than a road, was lined with rows of nice large trees on each side. The road continued for a short distance, to a sort of traffic circle. One exit of the circle was barricaded and I noticed that trees had been cut down along the road along the barricaded exit. That was actually a longer road. So, clearly, the land beyond the traffic circle was being developed.

Curious about this location now, I looked at the satellite view of Google Maps and then the Street View. The Street View! I was amazed - what it showed was that in the recent past there had actually been a single long road lined with these nice large trees on each side, forming a canopy for the entire length. So that was now gone except for the short length of road I had been on. What could I do to preserve this earlier view? The only thing I could think of was to make screenshots from Street View. That is what I did and I put these all together in a document on my PC.

I haven’t shown it to anyone yet - I have just one printed copy. What someone would see on viewing this document are about a dozen photos of pleasant scenes along this tree-lined road - as if actually being there. The last page, however, simply has the words “This no longer exists.”

None of those trees exist now; not a single one. The road has also been renamed - because its original name wouldn’t make sense now in the absence of any trees and might even make someone wonder what existed before. Oddly Google Street View has not caught up to the present, but shows the road as I saw it in 2013. I suspect even that view will be gone soon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom