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New Year, New Site: Welcome to Misplaced Focus

As promised, I’ve spent my time off putting together a portfolio site for my photography. I’m very happy with the way everything came out, all the little tweaks in wordpress I had to do to get things working the way they should, etc.

I haven’t hunted down all of the EXIF data for all the photos yet, so there’s still some gaps as far as what is what. But with that aside, I’m glad I can stop using CM has a place to display images and I can focus more on writing, where this sill give me an outlet for my creative behind the lens.

You can check it out at MisplacedFocus.com, and of course, you can become a fan via Facebook’s Networked Blogs by Clicking here.

Thank you all for your continued support in everything that I do, it really means a great deal to me.

As always I welcome any criticisms on my work, a shot, the site, or anything else.

Here’s to 2010!

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I need your help! “Down the Tracks” is a finalist for Bing.com!

Down the Tracks

So just for kicks, I decided to submit my photo “Down the Tracks” to the Bing.com (picture on the left) facebook contest to see what will be featured on Bing.com (yes, the background of the search area).

Well, to my surprise, I got an email from Microsoft today saying that my picture is one of the finalists! I’m all kinds of excited to be able to get a photo from Mount Clemens shown to  worldwide audience.

But I need your help! If you’re on Facebook then you can vote for my picture. Just click here to become a fan on Bing and it will let you vote in the contest.

To show my appreciation for helping me out and being such great supporters I’ll be giving away a couple s 8 x 10 prints of this shot  (which I usually sell for $25). Just leave a comment at the bottom of this post (either at http://www.cruzweb.net/2009/12/15/i-need-your-help-down-the-tracks-is-a-finalist-for-bing-com or on the Facebook note) and I’ll draw a couple random names (yes, they will be random) and if you win I’ll send you an email or Facebook message asking for your information.

So pretty please; vote and pass this along to your friends and help me win the Home Sweet Homepage Photo Contest.

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Down the Tracks [HDR]

So with the weather surprisingly pleasant and the sun setting, I opted to head out with a camera and see what I could find. Here’s what happens with a camera on railroad tracks as the sun is setting.

Down the Tracks

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The Detroit Opera House Chandelier [HDR]

Today I did the first of three days as part of the Detroit Orientation Institute. You can learn more about it here, and if you get the chance I highly recommend doing it sometime.

Anyways, we were in the Opera House for a tour and a panel discussion on the Arts, and while in the lobby I snapped this shot of a chandelier in the lobby. It really shows how amazingly colorful the place is, and standing there is an experience in itself.

A Chandelier at the Detroit Opera House

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Old Main at Wayne State in HDR

Here is a new one that I’m very happy with. The ghosting looks much better than some of my earlier works. This was taken before school started so it’s the calm before the storm of the Fall 2009 semester. The shot is taken from atop the parking garage behind the bookstore.

Old Main at Wayne State University, Detroit MI

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Old Restaurant HDR

I have a lot more new stuff coming up. But in the meantime, I’ve been on holiday. So while I get the new posts ready, here’s a picture of a closed Restaurant along highway 66. While I got some interesting comments on my Renaissance Center picture for looking way too CGI, I worked to get this one looking as real as it looked when I took the shot. While the building appears a little saturated, the sun was hitting it pretty powerfully. I’m pretty pleased with it, especially since I don’t have the chance to shoot a lot of rural stuff. Either way, enjoy, and click for the full size.

The Old Restaraunt on Highway 66

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Welcome to Mt. Palmer: A look inside Detroit’s Most Dangerous Neighborhood

Welcome to Mt. Palmer

NeighborhoodScout.com is a fantastic resource for people looking to move. It as all kinds of fun stats on where want to live, how far your “neighborhood” goes, crime rates, school information, etc. No doubt it saves a Realtor a ton of time every year as they work to convince people to buy homes all over the country. Of course with this data, you can see where the safest and most dangerous neighborhoods are in the country.

Walletpop.com did a story recently analyzing the 25 most dangerous neighborhoods in the nation. Only one Detroit hood made the list, coming in at #23: The Mount Elliott / Palmer neighborhood. Within this small scope of streets there are a little over 150 projected violent crimes every year (or one every 2-3 days), the violent crime rate per thousand is almost 100, and the odds of you becoming a victim of such a crime if you live there is 11%, which is quite a bit by most standards (even the most dangerous neigborhood in America has odds of 25%).

The thing that makes the Mt. Palmer neighborhood interesting is that it’s a mix of residential dilapidation and an industrial wasteland: the neighborhood houses the Motor City Industrial Park, a massive complex that was once home to Packard Motors and now sits abandoned, with no clear owner, and is set on fire seemingly every couple of weeks now. As a Realtor, the only convincing point I could make to sell a home here is the price. There is nothing else that is even remotely inviting.

Mt. Palmer is located on the east side of the city, between Gratiot Avenue and I-94 to the east and west, as well as East Grand Blvd. and Mount Elliott to the north and south. You can view a map over at the Neighborhood Scout Website. It’s common knowledge that the east side of the city is more problematic than the west side, however while the residential parts don’t appear as bad on the outside, it looks as though this really is the place where anything can happen.

Here come the pictures. The sepia tone gives it a nice eerie feeling to it all, but of course you can see the full roll of pictures in full color over in the photos section. Click on any photo to view a larger resolution.
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Renaissance Center HDR

A shot I took of the Renaissance Center that I took the night of the Detroit Fireworks, looking up from Atwater Street, right on the river.

The Reniassance Center from Atwater Street