The Last Vestige of Winter

The Last Vestige of Winter

March 25, 2014

No one will argue with me when I say this has been a long, harrowing winter. Even those who love winter will admit they have had enough.  This winter I have not spent a lot of time outdoors taking photos, at least not compared to previous winters.  The cold was, well, just too cold.

I finally made a break for it and took to downtown Detroit to do some exploring. One place I wanted to revisit was the Packard Plant, with it being in the news so much these past few months with its recent sale, I knew there were going to be changes.  For one, security (mostly keeping out the scrappers). My friend Larry (who gets credit for taking images of me for this post!) and I drove down E. Grand Blvd. by the plant where we usually park, and there it was the security vehicle.  We kept driving around the back of the plant and parked down the street in front of an old abandoned warehouse I had also been to in the past.

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This time, however, I am visiting in the cold. The sight that greeted us as soon as we walked in the front door was what looked like a frozen curtain of water completely covering the concrete stairs with giant icicles hanging down the sides. The ice was thick and walking up the stairs was a bit tricky.

As we very carefully walked up to the stairs, we would stop from time to time to capture the icicles. I even had to make sure my tripod didn’t go sliding away along with my camera! Thankfully my tripod legs have spikes on the bottom of each leg to give more grip to lessen those chances!

As we neared the top flight of stairs, we could see light from the opening to the roof streaming in. I used my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens for this image to encompass the whole stairway.icicles2 The Last Vestige of Winter
What we came in to see this time was the eerie green glow of light that comes in from one of the third-floor windows. The sight we found when we came upon the area was that every inch was covered in ice. You could have, quite literally, ice skated inside this warehouse. And the ice was smooth! If I had known that I would have brought my skates!
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After the warehouse, we made our way down the street to the south end of the Packard Plant.  Click to see a slide show of images taken.  It has been at least six months since I had been to the plant, and I could see the changes, most namely the new graffiti, as well as the continued deterioration (such as top floors falling down on lower floors).