MILWAUKEE POTPOURRI

Over the last few weeks I have been wandering around Milwaukee looking for photographic subjects . . . with mixed success.  Here are some photos from those meanderings that aren't part of a larger study or post.

What?  This is a bank of electric meters for an apartment complex bathed in strong mid-day sunlight. I thought it worked best as a black & white.

I liked the deterioration of this doorway to an old warehouse in the Walker's Point south of downtown.  Note, for example, the mismatching hinges.  What was interesting was that the door was only about five feet high.

Every few years Milwaukee, as do other cities, decorates its downtown area with novelty "sculptures" that are similar to one another but that differ in terms of decoration.  This year it is classic bicycles laden with baskets of flowers that have been painted in multiple primary colors.  Following are detail shots of a couple of other examples.

Like many older Midwestern cities, Milwaukee's architecture is a blend of older and newer styles.  In the following shot I was attempting to capture examples of both in a single shot.

These buildings, the Northwestern Mutual headquarters building on the left and the US Bank building on the right, feature differing styles.  The NML building was built in the late 19th century, while construction of the US Bank building was completed in the early 1970s.  This was shot in the evening in somewhat fading light.  I wanted to keep both buildings in reasonable focus, but even at f/11, the US Bank building seems a little "soft."

In the same location was a nondescript building that caught my eye not for its architecture but for its paint job.

It might be difficult to figure out, but the blue-gray wall is perpendicular to the red-orange one.

I also couldn't resist taking another shot of the Milwaukee City Hall, bathed in warm evening light.  I turned the shot on an angle just to create some interest.

If nothing else, it is interesting to compare the complexity of architecture of the City Hall with the oversimplified lines of the building in the prior shot.

One final shot of buildings was this one that I "saw" in an industrial area on the city's near south side.

I thought the multiple, nonparallel lines helped this shot.  To accentuate these lines and avoid the distractions that color can cause, I converted the image to a black & white.

Milwaukee has its share of public art, including this mural located off a bike path on the south side.

Well done, I think.

My wanderings also took me to the Lakefront.  Here is a shot of a small marina at Lake Shore State Park, located east of the Summerfest grounds.

On this same excursion I also got a shot of a cargo ship on Lake Michigan, viewed through the rigging of the Denis Sullivan authentic replica sailing ship that makes its home on Milwaukee's lakefront.

It was nearly 8 p.m. when I took this shot, and I really liked how the light was still warming up the ship's superstructure and at the same time was creating an interesting rose color in the evening sky.  I wanted to keep both the cargo ship and the rigging in good focus, setting the aperture at f/11.

Finally is a shot of the walkways and seating of an amphitheater behind the Discovery World building, also on the lakefront.  

The curving lines of the wooden construction helped to make this shot.

John