Thursday, August 16, 2012

CHESTER, West Virginia

I remember when I was young playing in the alley behind my grandmother's house in Chester, West Virginia just across the river from East Liverpool Ohio. I also remember one of the neighborhood kids throwing rocks through the windows of an abandoned factory. The factory he said had once made pottery and all his relatives at one time or other had worked there. As years went by and I grew older, visits to my grandmother's house uncovered other parts of the small town's history.
"Chester used to not be so small, there used to be alot of money around here you know." My grandfather Pete would say to me as we sat on the porch in the fading light for his nightly cigar. "Now a days all you got around here are those God damned gamblin' cafes. As if this town had money." He was right, about both I realized. As the pottery industry died, and families became more desperate to find a solution to their financial crisis, the gambling cafes swooped in to snatch up whatever funds were left. Now a days the only remnance of the once booming parts of town are the graveyards of factories and smoke stacks. These images were taken at an abandoned chemical plant and the remains of a pottery plant. Oh and a pawnshop. hope you enjoy.































Monday, August 13, 2012

Procrastination

Summer time can be a wonderful time to take photographs, the warm colors of sunset, darkness not falling till around 9, the many music/art/food festivals, and the homecoming of old friends. The opportunities to shoot are endless. Summer, however, also provides the strong temptation to procrastinate and not jump on opportunities. These photos that I am posting are the result of my own procrastination, images taken when in all likelihood I should have been doing something else.