WALKING WALKER'S POINT

Walker's Point is a Milwaukee neighborhood south of downtown.  It is an older part of town that until fairly recently was in a state of increasing deterioration.  More recently, however, it has been undergoing a renaissance with a large number of interesting retail shops and restaurants.  On the other hand, many of the buildings date back to the 19th century and reflect their age.  A couple of weeks ago on a Saturday morning I grabbed my camera to take advantage of some unseasonably warm weather and walked the neighborhood for a couple of hours to see what I could shoot.

Walker's Point has more than its share of street art, including a very large mural on the side of a building just off the north-south freeway.  Here is a small piece of that mural.

In contrast, here is a portion of a small mural featuring stylized fish.

What caught my eye was not so much the fish as the written comment, which was added at a later date.  Note the spelling.

Speaking of verbiage, here is part of other public "art" located under a major freeway that features an Eric Clapton lyric.

In this case I wanted to emphasize the general scene, including the underside of the underpass.  

Then there was this dramatic jalapeño pepper painted on the side of, yes, a Mexican restaurant, of which there are many in Walker's Point.

There was also graffiti, of course.  I actually liked the following abstract that I converted to a black and white.

Speaking of black and white, here are some other shots that I thought worked better as monochromatic.

I'm still trying to figure out the intended function of these sidewalk grids inserts that are becoming nearly ubiquitous, at least in urban neighborhoods.

For whatever reason, I liked the following very simple shot of a very white, very plain doorway and surround.

To get this image, I had to fool my camera's light meter by overexposing the shot to keep the walls a bright white.

I also played around a bit with shallow depth of field, in a couple of cases focusing on chain link fences and letting the backgrounds go out of focus.  In some sense my intended objects were in the background--the distant building in one case and the chicken "artwork" in the other.

Once the weather warms up again, I think I will find myself returning to the Walker's Point neighborhood.

John