WALKER'S POINT DECREPITUDE

For the past several years Walker's Point, a neighborhood south of downtown Milwaukee, has been undergoing a gentrification, with construction of upscale condos and repurposing of abandoned factories and warehouses as restaurants and funky retail outlets.  But the neighborhood still has its share of buildings in need of repair or updating.  Recently, I spent some time in the neighborhood with my camera looking for a little decrepitude.

The first shot is of an opening in a wall of a building that had been boarded over at some point in the past.  This was in an alley between buildings, by the way.  All in all a bit creepy.

I liked this opportunity for the three different colors that the boards had been painted for some reason and the subsequent failure of that paint.  After thinking about the options for a while, I decided to capture it on an angle.  But after experimenting with just showing the painted boards, I decided to expand the shot to reveal portions of the surrounding concrete borders, if only for context.

I was attracted to the following shot for the shadows being cast by the vine extending in front of the painted concrete wall.

I focused on the vine but decided that I also wanted to maintain detail in the failed paint on the concrete blocks.  So I narrowed the aperture to f/16.  The steel cable was still  a bit out of focus, but I didn't think that was a big deal.

I liked the following shot of a hasp and padlock arrangement because of the variety of textures that it included--and because of the overall decrepitude.

The last three shots are of handles that had witnessed a good deal history.

For this last shot I played around with just including the handle and none of the blue-green metal border.  But in the end I thought including not just the color border but the stonework to the right helped to tell a bit more of the story.

John