The old Mall, Business Loop Columbia

I think this is the first time a color image has shown up on the nighttime Columbia blog.  I thought about this one in black and white, but the color on the wet pavement was just too compelling to pass up.  Late October, 2016, on the business loop.

The corner of Tigertown

I've explored this area before, by day and by night.  But on a cool, rainy night in April it seemed even more expressive than usual.  Certainly deserving of further study.  At one time this block of buildings was called Tigertown...now it is occupied by an auto repair shop, a used car dealer, a couple bars and a strip club.  Still a colorful place, despite being somewhat down at the heels.  This is the used car dealership on the strange, difficult to turn left at corner of 7th, Rangeline and the Business Loop.  A triple corner, if you will.  By day I think this place is bright yellow.

Tiger Pawn in the Rain

A rainy night on the east end of the business loop. 

Arrow Head Motel, Business Loop

The Arrow Head Motel on Columbia's business loop, as it used to look when they still turned the neon on every night.  Now the motel (and its sign) are candidates for the 2012 City of Columbia historic properties status...http://gocolumbiamo.com/Planning/Commissions/HPC/

Laundromat on Garth and Business Loop

Moving from the laundromat image in my last post to the image in this post is a bit like lifting the needle and turning off the turntable, only to fire up the Ipod.  Or putting down the Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel and picking up a copy of The Economist.  Well, it illustrates two things very well.  The changing face of Columbia within a space of eleven or twelve years, and the apparent dichotomy in my own approach between the time I took the photograph on Paris Avenue and last Monday night when I took this image in a strip mall just off of Garth.  The architecture, the signage and the very construction of the building lack the warmth, character, and voice of the other laundromat in the last post.  The other laundromat had several different hand-painted signs that each made a democratic appeal to the neighborhood to come in and wash their clothes.  This one simply states "Drop Off Service."  My approach is tellingly different as well.  In 2000, when I photographed the laundromat on Paris, I was presumably shooting some Ilford HP-5 through a Nikon N2000, on a tripod.  I was trying to include the signage, the street sign, but also some of Paris Avenue to give the image some context and some atmosphere.  In the newer image, I am preoccupied with keeping the vertical lines vertical and avoiding any linear distortion.  Since the building was not lit from the front I am more interested in the light coming out of the laundromat and illuminating the painted letters from behind.  But the approach simply isn't as passionate as the approach of ten years ago.  Perhaps I need to listen to more vinyl, and put away the itunes for a while.

Business Loop by Night

Columbia's business loop on a summer's night.