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Disappearing Subjects

pbromaghin

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How about a thread about subjects we have photographed that no longer exist?

Here's one that I got in San Diego's Balboa Park backin 2019.




2 years later we were at the park again and the whole time we were there we could hear chainsaws hard at work.

 
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pentaxuser

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Well as we know from the Rocky films, Balboa can fell anything- no matter how big

Sorry couldn't resist

pentaxuser
 

Alex Benjamin

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I could start with a photo of my youth. Or, even simpler, of my hair...

Ok, seriously, great idea for a thread.
 

Sirius Glass

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The things one takes for granted turn out often to be what is missed later. Be observant and be willing to explore each subject.
 

Andrew O'Neill

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So, do we post a photo showing it was there, and then another showing that it is no longer there? That would be pretty impactful...I've been back to photograph something again, only to find that it was gone...but never bothered to photograph it. Maybe I should, from now on...at least with my phone.
 
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pbromaghin

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That's pretty much my intent with this.
 

Moose22

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Aw man, that one fell? I remember climbing on that as a kid several decades ago.

I've taken more than a few of the powerplant that is now being dismantled. Chimney is gone, most of the building is gone. It'll be completely gone soon enough. Here it is with the chimney just starting to get lower:



I'll take another shot soon and add it to see where it's at now. Excuse to take a walk with a camera after work!
 

guangong

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Sirius Glass said:
The things one takes for granted turn out often to be what is missed later. Be observant and be willing to explore each subject.
Click to expand...
You hit it! That’s the problem, we do take things for granted, assuming a permanent existence.
The abandoned buildings and chemical fixtures of an abandoned factory existed for years on bank of Hudson R. Always thought, “Fascinating view. Must take a picture sometime.” Developers removed all traces in a day or two.
 

DWThomas

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Shortly after joining APUG I posted a shot of a beech tree along a nearby trail:

In the following years it began to deteriorate and is long since gone. I suspect some of the trail construction may have added root damage to the stress of age.
 

VinceInMT

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In about 1980 I was motorcycling past Sheep Ranch, California when I say a yard full of old Volvos. As the owner of a 1959 Volvo 544 (which I still have) I pulled over and took a picture. The camera was load with 35mm Ektachrome. A year or two ago I came across that photo and wondered what ever happened to those Volvos. Not having the opportunity to drive by for a look (I’m in Montana now) I used Google Streetview and mocked up this side by side look of then and now. Coincidentally, one of my classmates in the art classes I am taking is from nearby there and her grandparents knew the person who had those cars but don’t know what happened to them.
 

DWThomas

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Circa 2011 or so, bicycling near Birdsboro, PA on a rail trail*, I spotted a huge, I mean YUGE! industrial facility that was in some stage of demolition. It was Armorcast, a divison of Birdsboro Iron & Steel, built in 1944 to build tanks -- as in Sherman and Patton tanks. It had multiple bays nearly 1500 feet long and 50 feet high. In November 2011 it appeared:


By December 2012 it appeared more like:


I missed the grand event, but in 2016 the 165 foot tall radial brick stacks were dropped --
And the site is now a 488 megawatt gas fueled power station! (I swear I took some shots, but not sure where they are.)

* The rail trail is mostly on the right-of-way of the former Pennsylvania Schuylkill Division, e-speaking of disappearances!
 
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DWThomas

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Some things are more subtle -- this is at Lock Ridge Furnace, a late 19th century hot blast operation in Alburtis, Pennsylvania that ran until 1920 or so.
2008:

2012:

Ownership of this site apparently shifted from the town to the county and one suspects there were concerns about visitor safety. Some other deliciously Olde Rust items also disappeared.
 

DWThomas

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The St. Nicholas Coal Breaker (anthracite coal) was located between Shenandoah and Mahanoy City Pennsylvania, the "largest in the world" when built in 1931.

In 2008, my Perkeo II saw:


It was abandoned in 1960, but stood until a few years ago, now there's just empty space.
 

VinceInMT

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DWThomas, great shots. I’ve become increasingly infatuated with Pennsylvania since one of my kids moved to Pittsburgh a few years ago. I motorcycled through the state last summer. Beauty of all types is everywhere.
 

DWThomas

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VinceInMT said:
DWThomas, great shots. I’ve become increasingly infatuated with Pennsylvania since one of my kids moved to Pittsburgh a few years ago. I motorcycled through the state last summer. Beauty of all types is everywhere.
Click to expand...
Thanks! I take lots of landscapes and such in color (mostly with electrocuted bits) but I enjoy the monochrome work for textures and structure. And being in the distant Philadelphia suburbs brings easy access to the Delaware, Lehigh, and Schuylkill river valleys. The Schuylkill in particular seems like a main artery in the "Rust Belt." Some of the industry goes back to the 1700s. And the Lehigh and Schuylkill rivers facilitated canals, and later railroads, that brought anthracite coal down to the "big city." There were pockets of iron ore all over the place too, so early on iron making was almost a cottage industry.

My PBase galleries (link in sig) have quite a pile of photos of Pennsylvania, as that's my closest target, but I've managed to go farther afield occasionally. There are a bunch of shots from the 70s, 80s, and 90s that I have yet to digitize and get to PBase (plus an overwhelming pile of shots from major trips in 2016 and 2019 that seem to be only partially represented).
 
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Kodachromeguy

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Rural (and urban) Mississippi is full of houses and stores that are literally crumbling apart and subsequently being demolished. It is a form of mass deconstruction, another example of the hollowing out of rural America. Here are two examples of churches near Eagle Lake (north of Vicksburg). The first is the Mount Zion MB Church near Laney Camp Road. I drove there two weeks ago, and all I saw was a flat field with some bare dirt. The second church was closer to Eagle Lake. The latter had rustic potties. All that is left is a grassy field. There are Kodak Panatomic-X frames from my Hasselblad.


 

VinceInMT

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DWThomas said:
My PBase galleries (link in sig)….
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. I took a quick look and will be back. We have similar interests. I like the clay pages and your artwork. When I retired (high school technology teacher) I decided to learn something completely different and went back to college and started working on a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and am finishing it up this semester with my senior show. I’ve taken ceramics, sculpture, new media, painting, and lots of art history classes but I specialized in photography and drawing.

In a previous lifetime ago, when I was in the army in the early 70s, I was stationed at Fort Dix, NJ and Camp (now Fort) Drum, NY and made the trip up and down the the northeast extension of the PA turnpike to Watertown and back many times. I ended up in Montana years later but I feel the draw to PA.
 

DWThomas

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Sounds good! I hear people say they don't know what they will do to occupy themselves when they retire; I look back and wonder how I ever found time to go to work!
 

DWThomas

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Oh, and there is a pair right here in my galleries . . .

The Portageville Bridge, Erie Railroad viaduct, became Norfolk-Southern:

Taken in 2014:


Circa 2017, the Genesee Arch Bridge, slightly upstream, replaced the old bridge.
Taken in the mist of a dreary day in October 2021:
 
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VinceInMT

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DWThomas said:
Sounds good! I hear people say they don't know what they will do to occupy themselves when they retire; I look back and wonder how I ever found time to go to work!
Click to expand...

Dave, I spent some time on your site. Great stuff. I am thinking we are almost twin sons of different mothers with our parallel interests: photography, art, baking, music, etc. Hobbies, passions, and interests are what fuels me. I’ve been redoing my web site to collect it all together. The photography section is pretty up to date as is the Cars and Motorcycles, Magnetic Recording, and Radio sections. The Visual Arts is there but will get a professional makeover soon. I’ll make another big push on it after I graduate in May. You can check it out here:

http://www.codecooker.com/

And my more recent motorcycling blog here:

https://fjradventures.blogspot.com/
 

Tel

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DWThomas said:
Sounds good! I hear people say they don't know what they will do to occupy themselves when they retire; I look back and wonder how I ever found time to go to work!
Click to expand...
Ditto that: if I'm feeling bored I grab a camera and head out the door. Never fails.
 
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