MILWAUKEE DETAILS

Evenings in the early summer are a great time to wander urban Milwaukee with my camera, either on the weekend or after business hours when traffic is light, parking is free, and the sunlight is warm and horizontal.  So I recently found myself wandering around the Hispanic area of Walker's Point, followed by a little time downtown.  Primarily I was looking for unusual details.  Here is some of what I got.

We've all seen these metal plates that have been placed where sidewalks have been sloped down to street level to accommodate pedestrians in wheelchairs.

  

I had always thought the plates were intended to provide traction for wheelchairs, but I have been informed by a person knowledgeable in these matters that the plates are instead intended to alert blind persons to a change in the slope of a sidewalk at the intersection with a cross street.  I liked how the plate's rust color was highlighted in the bright evening light.

Following is a shot of a painted doorway leading into a restaurant in Walker's Point.

It's a nothing shot really, but I did like the bright colors and the imperfections in the texture of the plastering and the paint.

Here is a shot of the "Open" sign for a well known Mexican restaurant.

I liked the green and red neon lights and thought it would have been better if I could have isolated the lights against a uniform background, but then decided that the different background colors added interest to the shot.  Probably just fooling myself.

The following is a portion of a flaming hot jalapeño pepper painted on the side of the same Mexican restaurant.

Below is a shot I have done before of the seating in an outside performance venue on the south side of the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts.  I turned this into a black & white to emphasize the seating pattern as an abstract.

This was taken later in the evening and I was beginning to lose light.  I was able to get a crisp handheld shot by bracing my elbows on a convenient ledge.  Shutter speed was down to 1/4 second.   A couple of minutes later, looking down, I noted a small, dying flower lying on a sidewalk grating system and worked to use it as the focal point for the following shot.

I decided that I didn't have to include all of the smaller circular section, as the viewer could figure out the remainder for himself.

John