I was going through some older images the other day when I ran across this one which I had taken a couple of years ago. I posted a different angle of the same building here. I decided that I liked this angle as well, especially because of the writing on the side of the building, so I thought I would work with the image to see if I could come up with something I liked.

This shot shows the old generator building for the Peninsula Paper Company of Ypsilanti, Michigan. The company closed years ago and the factory was demolished to make way for some apartments. I shot this shot of the old hydroelectric generator building from the site of the old paper factory. It was late in the day and I tried to get to this location before the sun set.

I’ve been finding it difficult to get out and shoot new material for a variety of reasons, but today was such a nice day I decided to make an effort to get out and at least shoot something. I decided to take a short drive into Detroit to check out the progress on the Michigan Central Station. The owners are finally doing something to at least stabilize the building. Mostly this involves tightening security around the station to keep people out, removing the broken windows and putting in new windows, and working on the roof. Progress is slow, but they have definitely made some progress at least regarding the windows on the lower level. They haven’t actually replaced any that I could see, but they have removed the broken glass.

One of the things which surprised me on my family’s visit to Marquette, Michigan was the interesting older architecture of many of the buildings. I was also surprised at the number and variety of churches for a town of approximately 20,000. It wasn’t too surprising to see a Catholic church, however, since the city was named after Father Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit missionary. What I love about this church is all the detail work, especially the tile work on the domed towers. I took several pictures, both of the entire structure as well as some of the detail work.

The ore dock in Marquette, Michigan is a pretty imposing structure. It’s probably at least two freighters in length and is this lovely mass of repeating concrete and metal elements. I took several shots, some wide, and some close-up. For this image, I shot 5 exposures to use for an HDR image since I thought that the HDR might really bring out the character in the concrete and metal. When processing, I also worked on a black and white version which I might post either here or on my 500px page. I think black and white works really well with this shot to give it an industrial look, but I like the look and color of the rusty concrete in the color version.

This is another shot of the abandoned (?) bus I found parked in a junkyard just outside of Defiance, Ohio. The image was created from 5 handheld exposures and which were merged together in Photomatix (see below) and then given additional processing using PhotoTools.

As I was driving to Defiance, Ohio, I saw a sign for ‘Independence Dam’. I thought that might be interesting so I took a short trip on a side road which ran along the Maumee (I think) river. I didn’t make it to the dam because it was in a state park and I didn’t want to pay an admission fee. However, along the way I noticed this junk/repair yard which had this bus sitting out front. I just had to stop and take some pictures.

In yesterday’s image, I showed an old railroad building in Defiance, Ohio. Just a short distance away was this abandoned grain elevator. I thought the elevator would make for a nice HDR, so I fired off 7 exposures in various locations, this one being my favorite. Even though this is an HDR image, most of the look comes from work I did with OnOne’s Photo Tools. I was trying for a grungy image which would highlight the textures of the building, so I used a variety of layers, mostly from the HDR section, to give the image some more life.

A couple of weeks ago Mike Olbinski, a photographer I follow, posted this shot of a grain elevator that he found while driving through Kansas. This got me in the mood to find some interesting elevators in Michigan, since Kansas is quite a ways away for me. I did some scouting on Flickr and managed to find a couple of good possibilities. One was a local elevator in Ypsilanti, Michigan which I posted last week. The other one was this old elevator in Henderson, Michigan. What I liked about this one was the decay and faded paint job. If you look carefully, you can see old signage for ‘Purina Chows’ and other products that were available at this location.

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.