On my way home from my visit to Fayette, Ohio (and Hal’s Garage) I headed up highway 109 towards Michigan. Just before I got to the Michigan border, I came across this grain elevator at a farm. What caught my eye was how rusty the thing was. Most of these things are really shiny aluminum, but not this one. The road didn’t have a really wide shoulder and there was a bit of a drop off to a ditch so I didn’t have a lot of room to pull over and get a good shot. I ended up pulling over and shooting this from my car window.

In my quest to find new material to shoot I took a short road trip into northern Ohio this weekend. I had seen a picture of this structure posted by one of my Flickr contacts and I thought it would be interesting to see it myself. I headed down to Toledo, Ohio, where I picked up US-20 heading west. Once I got out of the Toledo area, the road opened up to wide open farmland. I was hoping I might see an old barn or two, and I was really hoping I might find one with a painted “Mail Pouch” tobacco sign, but no such luck. I did see one barn which I’m pretty sure used to have a sign painted on one end, but it had been freshly painted over. Anyway, I pressed on until I reached Fayette, Ohio, a small town in western Ohio. There, on the eastern side of town, is “Hal’s Garage”. My understanding of this building is that it is just a private garage, not a working garage, but I still think it is pretty cool. I love the old signs and the way trunks of cars are used as awnings.

ontinuing my quest to find interesting grain elevators to shoot, I present this image taken of a feed and grain store located in Webberville, Michigan. I was actually passing through Webberville on my way to find an old grain elevator that I had seen during a Flickr search. I hadn’t really planned on stopping in Webberville, but I figured, what the heck maybe there would be something interesting to shoot. The first thing you see when you approach Webberville from the highway is the large Archer Daniels Midland elevator and complex. I took some shots of it, but the picture I really wanted to get would have been difficult since it would have involved shooting from just outside of the security gate. I really didn’t feel like dealing with security so I passed on that shot. However, I had noticed just down the tracks a bit, there was another, smaller elevator. I managed to find the road which led to this feed and grain store. It wasn’t quite as rustic as I would have liked, but parts of the building had an interesting character. I took a few different shots from different angles and I liked this one the best.

Recently I’ve been in a bit of a shooting slump and I’m trying to come up with little projects which might help me out. I’ve always had a fascination with old grain elevators and seeing some shots from other people got me inspired to do some hunting to find structures which might be interesting to shoot. I decided to search Flickr to see what others have found to help focus my effort instead of driving aimlessly about in search of something I may never find. I happened to run across an image of the elevator taken in Ypsilanti, Michigan. I live nearby and I knew approximately where this elevator was located, so I decided to check it out this past weekend and ended up with the shot you see above. I particularly like the sign for the Frog Island Brewery.

We had some nice weather last week and all around I saw trees flowering and leafing out. I decided to take a quick drive around the campus of the University of Michigan to see where there might be a good combination of architecture and flowering landscape. The shot above shows the Intramural Building with a nice line of flowering trees. Not sure what kind of trees they are, but they looked nice.

This shot shows some of the details of the Lenawee County Courthouse that was the subject of yesterday’s post. I shot this from directly in front of the building using my 70-300mm lens. Some of the key details are the patterns in the roofing shingles, the terra cotta reliefs and all the curves and arches.

A couple of years ago I visited Adrian, Michigan and ran across this wonderful old courthouse building. I didn’t have a camera with me at the time and I’ve always wanted to come back and take some pictures. I’m only about an hour’s drive away from Adrian, but I never found the time to get back until this past weekend. The weather was sunny and pleasant and I thought the mid-morning light might look good on the building, so I packed up my camera and drove to Adrian.

With springtime comes the opening of the Gilmore Car Museum, a great car museum located between Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, Michigan. The museum has a great collection of automobiles from virtually any time period. In addition to their regular displays, they also hold various car shows on their grounds. This shot was taken late last spring at the 2010 Classic Car Collectors of America (CCCA) show. This show features a wonderful collection of wonderfully restored classic automobiles. This particular image shows the interior of a 1940 Packard Touring Sedan.

We’ve been having a pretty blah spring here in Michigan, lots of cool rainy days. It hasn’t exactly motivated me to go out and shoot. Sunday started out this way, but in the afternoon the sun started to come out and the temperatures warmed up. I decided I might as well go out for a little while and see if I could find something interesting to shoot. I spent a little time in Chelsea, Michigan shooting around the train station and old clocktower they have there, but none of those pictures really thrilled me. On the way home, I went past this grain elevator. I like grain elevators, they have an interesting industrial quality to them. I stopped and took a few shots including the one you see above.

This is a shot of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I drive by this church frequently, and I’ve always liked the way it looks when the sun is shining on it in the afternoon. I’m a big fan of contrast and the sharp angles of the building combined with the angle of the sun creates an interesting look.