Some new photos from Fort Wayne

turtle-rock.jpg


My grandparents lived on Ellison Road in rural southwest Allen County, Indiana. When we drove to grandpa's house when I was a kid, we would look for the Turtle Rock next to the railroad track that crosses Ellison Road. This gigantic rock has stood by the tracks for decades. My father says it was there when he was a kid. It probably fell off of a railroad car decades ago.

The stream next to the tracks is one of the surviving portions of the old Wabash-Erie Canal, which once connected Fort Wayne's rivers to the Wabash River. This allowed boats to travel from the great lakes to the Ohio River and the Mississippi. When Railroads made the old canal obsolete, the tracks were built on the canal's towpath, and most parts of the canal were eventually filled in.

I made this photograph earlier this evening.
 
wabash-erie-1.jpg


This is one of the surviving portions of the old Wabash and Erie Canal, which once connected Lake Erie to the Ohio River. The canal, which opened in 1843, allowed boats to travel from the great lakes to the Ohio River and the Mississippi. When Railroads made the old canal obsolete, the tracks were built on the canal's towpath in the Fort Wayne area, and most parts of the canal in Allen County were drained and buried in 1870.

This section of the canal is in southwest Allen County, Indiana. It connected the Maumee River in Fort Wayne to the Wabash River in Huntington. I photographed it yesterday evening.
 
Chris great Series its allways a good a Idea to photograph something one has a connection to.
To quote David Bailey "you don't have to sleep with the model… but it helps!" :)

Dominik
 
I went to grad school for purely personal reasons. I don't intend to get a job with it, there are no jobs where I live, and I don't need one anyway. I studied history, no art, because frankly I didn't see what an MFA would teach me at this point with 15 yrs experience as a professional artist. My style of work is already developed and I know where I want to go with it. I love history, it is important to the work I do.

I studied something that interests me intellectually.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
paulding-rd-flag.jpg


Driving down Paulding Road on the southeast side of Fort Wayne, I noticed this old, torn up, dirty American flag nailed to a utility pole. I went back in the evening to photograph it as the sun was setting. The man who lived in the house nearby told me that he found the flag in the street, being run over by passing cars. He didn't want to throw it away, so he hung it from a nail on the pole.

I made this photograph yesterday evening.
Click to expand...

Would love to see this photographed again in different light. I think it tells a great story, but I don't think the lighting does it justice. Perhaps magic hour? Just after sunset, with those cool blues and a hint of streetlight.
 
cinemakyle said:
Would love to see this photographed again in different light. I think it tells a great story, but I don't think the lighting does it justice. Perhaps magic hour? Just after sunset, with those cool blues and a hint of streetlight.
Click to expand...

I'd get myself shot if I showed my face in that part of Fort Wayne after dark. Its in the center of an area that averages a murder every 10 days!
 
Chris,
Thank you for reminding us how precious our Flag is. Most Americans really understand what it stands for and enjoy seeing it wave freely. I run an Auto Business and when we built it decided to showcase our Flag on a 110 ft. lighted pole. We have flown a 30 X 60 Flag every day, every hour for 24 years. It makes you proud to see it. Also I get several calls a week thanking us for the reminder of our great Flag. Lastly I represent Ford vehicles and when they didn't take government money to survive the phone calls doubled.

I appreciate your work and comments on this forum.

Jim
 
In Ft. Wayne nearly all the murders take place on the southeast side, which is our 'inner city'. The area is controlled by street gangs and drug dealers after the sun goes down. Right down the road from the flag on the pole is a Walgreens store that was once robbed at gunpoint 3 times in one day. The third one happened while the police where still there investigating the second one!
 
cool-bus.jpg


The Cool Bus!

I found this former "Short Bus" school bus, transformed into the "Cool Bus", in front of Waynedale Auto Repair at the corner of Old Trail Road and Lower Huntington Road in Fort Wayne's Waynedale area.

The text on the side of the bus says; "Peace Love and Intergalactic Harpiness." That's Harpiness, not Happiness! There is a harp painted on the side of the bus, as well as a UFO and the planet Saturn. The painted sign on the back gives the bus its name. I have no clue what it all means!

I photographed it yesterday evening.
 
perspective.jpg


I found these newspapers in my grandma's basement yesterday afternoon. She has piles of old newspapers down there waiting to be recycled.

These American flags, printed on newsprint, have been included in Fort Wayne's two newspapers several times over he years since the September 11 terrorist attacks. The text on the bottom of them says, "Hang this flag in your window as a sign of solidarity."

The newspaper under them is the Perspective section of the Journal Gazette. It is the political news and editorials section of Fort Wayne's morning paper.
 
round-tree.jpg


I'm going through my archives, scanning films from the last couple years that I didn't get done before. I have about 300 rolls piled up that I need to go through. This one is from January, 2010.

This tree's almost perfectly round shape struck me as both strange and beautiful. It is in a cornfield along US-24 east of Woodburn in northeast Allen County, Indiana.
 
ward-corp1.jpg


This 19th Century factory building is still in use today. Located on Growth Avenue off West Main Street in Fort Wayne, it is currently home to Ward Corporation, a metals foundry.

This complex of industrial buildings is one of the few remnants of the huge factories that employed most of Fort Wayne's working people in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

I photographed this back in January, 2010. Just scanned its negative last night.
 
after-grandpa-died.jpg


Two years after my grandpa died, his house still sat empty, the kitchen counter covered in old junk that his kids thought too worthless to take with them when they cleaned out the cabinets.

Grandpa passed away in 2008, and I made this photograph in 2010. I scanned it last night.
 
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