In previous articles, we looked around Olympia, Washington. Let us take a quick diversion back to the US South.
On our way from Vicksburg to Houston, we overnighted in Shreveport, Louisiana. I wanted to do a last documentation in a southern neighborhood that shows elements of traditional wood architecture, decay, and neglect. In the morning, we drove west on 70th street in south Shreveport and looked at some of the side streets. The light was soft and even, quite suitable for architecture.
Click any picture to see it at 1600 pixels on the long dimension.
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| Quiet times on Bates Street (Fuji Acros film, Spotmatic F camera, 28mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens) |
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| Cottage on Bates Street (24mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens) |
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| Bates Street house |
Bates Street was quiet, with empty lots and houses that were boarded up. I could not tell if they were going to be repaired. If they were to be demolished, no one would have bothered to secure the window with plywood, so possibly there was a plan to restore some of them. Still, it is not a pretty scene.
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| Bethany Street |
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| Bethany Street house (24mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens) |
Bethany Street had many empty lots, meaning the former houses had been razed and the lots graded.
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| Time for some crawfish at 925 E. 70th Street |
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| 7020 Line Avenue - not much happening now |
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| The Little Shanty art store on Line Avenue, also unfortunately closed |
Line Avenue runs north south. It was more commercial than the side streets but was very quiet. The street just to the right of The Little Shanty was East 71st Street. It offered a bit more photographic material.
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| Shed on E. 71st Street |
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| Fixer-upper shed on E. 71st Street (28mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens) |
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| Asphalt shingle cottage, 569 E. 71st Street |
Asphalt shingles were common mid-century for inexpensive housing. We look down on it now, but it was a practical building material because it was easy to install, inexpensive, long-lasting, and repelled bugs and vermin. It did not need repainting, as do shingles or clapboard.
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| Non-cottage, E. 71st Street |
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| Duplex under renovation, E. 71st Street |
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| Another duplex, E. 71st Street |
Some of the houses on E. 71st Street were being renovated. That is a hopeful sign.
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| Muscle Therapy Center, 7101 Southern Avenue |
This clinic is in a rather bunker-like brick building with burglar bars over the windows. It was unfortunate pragmatic (=cheap) architecture and looked unkept.
This finishes our quick tour on October 26, 2023, of a neighborhood in south Shreveport, Louisiana. Maybe I posted too many photographs. But, I may never return to this part of the world, although one never knows.
I took these frames with my Pentax Spotmatic F camera and 24mm or 28mm SMC Takumar (thread-mount lenses) using Fuji Acros 100 film (exposed at EI=80). These lenses were multi-coated and among the best mid-price 1970s optics for SLR cameras. Praus Productions in Rochester, NY, developed the film. I scanned it with a Plustek 7600i film scanner operated by Silverfast Ai software. I made minor contrast adjustments with Photoshop CS6.
