Day 364/365

     I checked out some more closed-down schools on Monday, and finally got to put together one behemoth of a gallery on MLive that you can see here. 

Day 360/365

     Today was a big mix of different assignments. It started out with taking a picture of a pit bull mix that reportedly bit a 2-year-old girl. The dog's currently being held at the local pound, and there's a big debate storming about what should be done. The dog was supposedly left by a former roommate of the girl's family, and had bitten the girl before. The family supposedly couldn't get animal control to take the dog without paying $130, which they couldn't afford. The whole situation is just unfortunate from all points of view, to put it mildly. 

   After the dog photos a reporter and I worked on a project we've been building up, centered around the abundance of closed schools in Saginaw. I won't be putting any of those photos up yet since I haven't published them on MLive, but these are a few candids from some of the exploring we embarked on today. Some Simon and Garfunkel-inspired graffiti and some bullet holes.

     To finish off the day, I shot a pretty serious car accident where all three people involved, (both drivers and one passenger), had to be rushed to the hospital. A bit of variety throughout the whole day, no?

Day 328/365

     On Sunday/day 328 I ventured down to Flint with a friend from work who knew the area pretty well. I thought parts of Saginaw looked depressing; Flint was on a whole other level. We definitely found some places we wanted to check out but couldn't get into, so we'll have to make another trip down with better tools sometime. We did find a shut down elementary school that we were able to get into, and checked out part of an old dam as well. It's sad what neglect can do to a place.

Day 304/365 - Part 1

     Today was so action-packed and filled with photos that I had to separate it into two parts! The day started out normally enough; I went to my only scheduled assignment of the day bright and early this morning. There's a section of turn-of-the-century historic buildings in downtown Saginaw that are slated for demolition if the local developmental authorities receive a $4 million grant they've applied for. 

     I got to tour a few of the buildings today with two reporters. We were only actually able to go inside of two of them; the others had little to no structural integrity left so we could only look in from the windows outside. I love touring abandoned buildings. There's something so beautifully melancholy about them to me, especially when they're historical buildings. These were structures made with so much attention to intricate details, that even as they're rotting and becoming the definition of urban decay they're absolutely gorgeous. It really is a shame that they'll most likely have to come down, but it was nice to get one last look into them in the meantime. 

You can see a full gallery of photos taken in the closed off buildings on MLive here.