♥ Highlands Photo Walk / Louisville Meetup ♥

On Wednesday night, I attended my second Meetup, this time with the Louisville(ish) SmugMug User Group. In other words, a group of other local professional and hobbyist photographers! We met on Bardstown Road for an evening photo walk, and then went for a drink at Flanagan's afterwards.

I love this part of town, and intend to go back on my own to explore Bardstown Road and the Highlands more, but this outing was so much fun with the group that we had! About 30 people has RSVP'd that they would be at the walk, but we had a quick rain shower right before the walk was scheduled to start, and I think that scared quite a few people away. We ended up with about 12-15 great people! They had me cracking up, and even though some of them already knew each other, they warmly welcomed all the new-comers.

Baxter Avenue, where we stayed on our walk, is an extension of Bardstown Road. Like St. Matthews, it is an area of authentic pubs and restaurants, chic boutiques, and colorful and friendly people. I don't know how many times we were stopped and asked who we were and what we were doing! We had several people agree to be models for us, including a gentleman with his sweet motorcycle!

Anyway, here are, uh...a few...of my photos from the walk! ;-)

Rob makes a great model, don't you think?

Rob liked to jump into my shots, so I switched my focus to get him in! :-)

I used Photomatix to get an HDR effect in the photo on the left. I still only have the free trial version, hence the Photomatix watermark.

Rudy took a little tumble...but he saved the camera! Whew! ;-P

 Ha! Rudy is nuts!

Read more...

♥ Colgate Clock ♥

While on my quick trip to Clarksville, IN to visit the Falls of the Ohio yesterday, I took a little side jaunt a few blocks up river to the Colgate Clock.

This is a landmark that is clearly visible from Louisville. It is really old (built in 1906 in New Jersey and illuminated in Clarksville since 1924!) really big (40 feet in diameter...the second largest clock in the world, only outdone by London's Big Ben!), and it stands atop the former Colgate/Palmolive factory in Clarksville.

Before the building was the Colgate factory, it served as the Indiana State Prison. After a fire in 1919, instead of paying the large amounts of money it would take to repair the building, the building was sold and the prison was moved to Pendleton, IN. In 1923, during the post-WWI industrial boom, it was refurbished as a factory. At first, to cut expenses, many of the prisoners stayed onsite and assisted in the labor at the factory.

In 2008, Colgate moved its factory from Clarksville. There have been no plans made to preserve the clock or the building, and there has been talk of developing the area into a shopping center due to its convenient location just off I-65. This has caused the site to rank on the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana 10 Most Endangered Historic Landmarks list.

With the Colgate sign that has since been removed. (Photo from http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM7ZJ)

Read more...