The old Turner Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta is next to the burned Gaines Hall.

Urban Exploring

A couple of weeks ago, a group of us did a little urban exploring around Atlanta. 

We headed over to the old Herndon Stadium which is currently closed.

It's too bad. 

It never ceases to amaze me how Atlanta treats what should be some of its most treasured buildings. The history of ownership is a story on its own but suffice it to say that Clark Atlanta University owns Herndon Stadium, Gaines Hall, and Furber Cottage.

The stadium was built in 1948 and named after a successful Atlanta businessman, Alonzo Herndon, who was born enslaved. Later, the stadium was renovated and hosted field hockey during the 1996 Olympics. 

Gaines Hall and Furber Cottage are in the Diamond Hill section of Atlanta, the heart of historically black colleges. Gaines Hall was built in 1869, and Furber Cottage was built in 1899.

Both buildings have suffered fires and stand seemingly abandoned, though university officials claim they're going to refurbish the buildings and stadium. 

I hope that's true. 

Two Outings in One Day

We went over to the stadium twice - once in the morning and later in the afternoon. When we got there in the morning, it was crazy bright and sunny, even though it was still pretty early. 

We used the time to explore around and get a few photos but we all agreed we'd rather have late afternoon shots. Well...we all agreed that we wanted golden-hour shots but it didn't seem safe to be there after sundown. 

So, we compromised and met up again around 5:30-6 pm in the hopes of better light. 

It was definitely better, and we decided our decision to not stay after dark was a reasonable one. There were people trickling in and drug use was already happening, so we left before it got dark. 

Fun Photo Editing

I had a lot of fun with this photo edit. When I was out there shooting and I saw that broken glass in the clock in the tower, I was already picturing how I wanted the photo to look. 

I did my basic edits in Lightroom and then pulled the photo into Photoshop where I continued to do more, such as changing the overall color tone and smudging the sky a bit. 

I then took the photo over to Luminar to add some birds and play with the colors a little further. 

This is the new release on my website, along with about six new photos in my Scotland Gallery. 

I've had a productive couple of weeks.

Enjoy your day and the rest of your week.

I'm hoping my week gets better. So far, it's been filled with the type of phone calls and stuff that most of us don't enjoy.

Why?

My neighbor ran into my parked car on Saturday night and I'm still waiting for the next steps from her insurance company. For now, I'm without a car which has been inconvenient, as you can imagine.

Accidents happen and at least no one was injured and for that I'm thankful.   

See you between the raindrops!

xoxo,
Susan

You can find Burned and Broken here and check out the new additions to the Scotland Gallery here. I'll be adding more to the Scotland Gallery by the end of the week.