Robert Pence

When converted for trail use the C&O bridge likely will be one of the most remarkable pieces of recreational trail in North America. That's one huge, long span!

I'm sure you'll get a lot of suggestions here. Here are a few things I try to follow: Unless you're going for a particular effect, avoid early mornings/late afternoons on clear, sunny days. The light is harsh and strongly directional, and you'll end up either overexposing the sunlit surfaces or losing the details in the shadowed areas. Same applies generally to brilliantly clear days, like when the sun comes out after a rainstorm; they may be great out in the open country or at the beach, but in the city they make for difficult photography. Blue sky - white cloud days, or days with just a very light film of high altitude clouds are good because the clouds diffuse the light just enough to fill in the details and reduce the effects of moderate levels of backlighting. Even light overcast days can be good, because the light is diffuse. In those conditions, you get best results if you try to compose your shots to minimize the amount of sky, because it will be much brighter than the ground-level scene. Again, hard-to-manage contrasts. Heavier overcast, so long as it's not dark and gloomy, works OK too if you have access to some software that you can use to maybe bump up the contrast and saturation a little bit. Sometimes there's not much that can be done about visual clutter in urban photography. All you can do is hunt for the right angle/composition to make an unavoidable traffic signal or lightpost a working part of the photo. For example, a traffic light overhead in the foreground of a building shot can provide a sense of depth to your photo. Sometimes you can find the right angle to make distracting overhead power lines a part of the composition. Another way to deal with difficult compositions; sometimes you can shoot from a little farther than you'd like, and then crop the photo. Cropping has a similar effect to using a longer lens; it compresses the apparent distance between near and far objects that are in the distance, giving an impression of greater distance. Here's a simple one, and something I used to fall prey to when I'd get too absorbed in trying to compose a photo; don't back up while looking through the viewfinder. You could step off a curb, fall, and hurt yourself and or damage your camera. There are other hazards too; try to be mindful of where you are and what your surroundings are. For that matter, most places you'll go probably are safe enough, but if you're in an area pretty much by yourself, be aware of other people who might be paying attention to you or approaching.

Maybe someone with only one foot bought a pair of new shoes, and left the unneeded one in case someone else with only the other foot needed it. :-) I wouldn't be surprised, though, if it did fall out of someone's bag while they were waiting for the bus. Maybe a nurse or someone else who wears white shoes at work, and carries them to and from to avoid getting them dirty and worn from walking on sidewalks and streets. I'll stop babbling now. </ :yap: >

I biked past the ammunition plant in 1973 en route from Fort Wayne to Louisville. The place seemed to go on forever. I think it was still somewhat active then; I remember seeing cars going in and out some of the gates.

So sad. Given the timing, alcohol probably was a factor. It's a shame that we don't have communities where more people can go out and celebrate/party without having to drive between their homes and the entertainment districts. Five young lives lost needlessly.

Depends upon one's degree of inebriation.

I'm glad to see that this place has been fixed up: When I was there in 2007, it looked like this: Apparently it was an arson fire. The place appeared to have been gutted badly. This one appears to have been let go; the landscaping is all out of control: Here's how it looked in 2007. Maybe it was lost to foreclosure.

Nice looking downtown!

Good stuff! Greensburg can stand on its own quite nicely without relying on their venerated tree on the courthouse tower; the original tree was a true accident, probably sprouted from a seed in some bird droppings. There have been many generations of trees since then; when one gets too big and heavy for the structure, they remove it and set another. I don't know if the successors are from seeds or cuttings from the original, or if they're just random nursery stock. They really should get rid of the tree as dictated by good maintenance, and respect the architecture and structural integrity of their fine courthouse.

Some magnificent buildings there. Sure doesn't look like the thoroughly downtrodden, dying city I've heard about!

Looks like a really impressive installation. I'll bet the operating costs are substantial, for energy to pump that much volume and for replenishing water lost to evaporation in Texas summer heat. The more photos I see of Fort Worth, the more I realize it's a good destination for a trip. Outside of these forum threads it gets little publicity, usually overshadowed by Dallas and Houston and San Antonio.

I wish them luck trying to preserve open land in Hamilton County. It's sprawlopolis, mostly upscale residential and the shopping that caters to that demographic, and the traffic problems are horrendous and getting worse. For years there's been talk of commuter rail to downtown Indy, but IMO that would only make it more attractive to sprawl development.

Even for a large mansion, in that era 12KW probably would have been quite adequate. That was before HVAC, microwaves, Plasma TVs, electric refrigerators, washing machines, clothes dryers, vacuum cleaners, and other electric appliances. Even commercial radio didn't go on the air until 1925. The only use for electricity was lighting, and even though lighting systems then weren't very energy-efficient, they were in use typically for only a few hours in the evening and a little while in the morning. That left most of the day and night for the windmill/dynamo to build up a charge in lead-acid storage batteries. Even into the 1930s, and sometimes until after WWII, some farms beyond the reach of commercial power used stand-alone generators and lead-acid batteries for lighting. The generators' output usually was less than 1KW (750-850 watts), and a bank of 15 or 16 lead-acid cells in glass jars provided 30-32 volts D.C.. Even with that limited output, the generator didn't have to run continuously. In some cases as seldom as one or two days a week the owner would start the generator. It would shut itself off after the batteries reached a full charge. Some wind-driven generators were available. Their output was much lower than the engine-driven rigs, and they often operated at 12 volts or thereabouts.

Most of my fashion needs are met here. There's a store handy to where I live. If I need to dress up, well, that's what my L.L. Bean catalog is for. :-)

A tornado a few years ago actually did Kendallville, Indiana a favor. Most of the commercial building facades had been clad in aluminum in the sixites, and current residents and business owners had no memory of what the buildings looked like under the cladding. The tornado tore up a lot of the cladding, and when people saw what had been hiding under it, they got inspired to fix up and restore. The result is a rather handsome main street that replaced a drab and dowdy one.

Sounds like there may be some structural "disarrangement" taking place. I hope it doesn't collapse while you're in it. That should be reported to the building inspection department as a possibly unsafe structure.

US 12? Between Ann Arbor and Northwest Indiana, it's an enjoyable drive if you're not in a hurry. Once you get west of the Indiana Dunes area, it gets pretty gritty.

Our (Fort Wayne's) north-south and east-west arterials are 3-4 lanes, one-way, with no parking. The signals are synchronized, and if I watch two or three lights ahead, I can easily adjust my speed, typically 25-35mph depending on time of day, and transit the CBD and adjacent residential areas, a distance of 5 miles or more, sometimes without stopping. The stupid b@$tards who haven't a clue about sychronized signals screw up everything, though. They accelerate hard from one light to another, get to the next one while it's still red and have to stop, and then can't get moving when it turns green. Everyone behind them has to stop and then start up again and it screws up the traffic flow, wastes gas, and increases vehicle emissions. If I were a big guy, I'd run them up on the curb, smash out the driver's side window with my fist, pull them out through the hole, and then slap them sh!tless and shove them under their SUV and give them a kick or two for good measure. But I'm not, so I just curse them under my breath. It's really simple to figure out the signal timing on our one-way arterials; the maximum number of consecutive signals you'll see in one color, either red or green, is three. If you see three greens ahead of you the nearest one will soon turn red, and you'd best pick up the pace. If you see three reds, you're pushing it and need to ease up if you want to keep rolling without braking. Set your speed so that you see one or two greens, and you're doing it just right.

Before the collapse of Detroit's auto industry there was that much traffic during peak periods. I recall getting stuck in seemingly endless traffic jams on the streets and expressways at rush hour. Something similar on a smaller scale is evident in South Bend, Indiana (population 107K, down from 132K in 1960). Before the death of Studebaker and related autmotive suppliers and other heavy industry, they justified destroying some large swaths of downtown to create streets up to six lanes wide (four traffic lanes, one-way, with a lane of parking on each side. Now, those streets are mostly deserted and all they accomplish is to encourage excessively fast driving.

Some of those long-established routes connecting dense major metro areas offer many possible combinations and permutations. Maybe it's just taking them more time to put them all together. Another possibility is that those routes serve areas where a lot of frequemt travelers already have figured it out.

If Louisville's demographic is anything like Southern Indiana's, I can understand the peril. Except for the civilized enclave around Bloomington, a lot of the southern third of the state is populated by mean rednecks who will bully a more-vulnerable individual just because they can, and that includes using cars and pickups to terrorize cyclists. I've been yelled at, had stuff thrown at me, and near Charlestown on a two-lane road some white trash in a farm truck going the opposite direction came across the center line at me and ran me off the road. It'd be nice if police departments could spare the resources to run some stings. Put a couple of plain-clothes cops on regular bikes, and shadow them not too far away with an unmarked cruiser. When they're overtly threatened by a motorist, they get the license number and call for backup, and Bingo! The act has been witnessed by a cop, an arrest can be made, and one more driver gets educated.

... and an Edsel, a Rambler station wagon, and a Plymouth station wagon!

Pretty severe! Some storms can hit so hard, with little warning. A couple of years ago in my little hometown I was taking pictures of ominous dark clouds and the eerie light that precedes some storms, when things got dangerous very quickly. I was in an open lot in an industrial area when the wind kicked up and I ducked behind the corner of a building to take refuge. Seconds later, an empty oil drum went flying past where I had been standing. I think the wind only lasted for a minute or two, immediately followed by several minutes of torrential downpour that overwhelmed the storm sewers and had water running in the streets. By the time it ended, there were trees down all over town, power out everywhere, and a lumber shed in pieces in the street not far from me. It was a scary and exhilarating experience.

Excellent! I remember Lima from the late sixties / early seventies, and downtown is looking a lot better! It's still a hard-times town, though. I hope they can keep the momentum, and keep improving.

Beautiful photos! Dayton is looking pretty good; the attention they've paid to the river and the areas bordering it plays a large part in the overall attractiveness of the downtown area. Every time I see photos of Cincinnati, and especially OTR, my eyes and mind expect streetcar tracks and catenary. I'm not saying that in the context of the current discussion over a streetcar line; it just seems like that's something that's missing from the overall picture, given the architectural character of the place.