One man's garbage is another artist's treasure... Or something like that.
Walkerville is filled with artist's treasure, not that all of it come from actual garbage.
On a typical day, one of my few with no work, I headed up the Butte hill to Walkerville. I used to live in Centerville back in the day.
First stop - The Alice Pit
My old neighborhood where I grew up had some smaller pits than this. They were all filled with garbage (tires, mufflers, nudie mags). This used to be a pit for open pit mining.
A homely viewing stand for the Alice Pit. The Berkeley Pit gets all the glory.
Along with mining relics, dogs and the Irish, Butte is also a 'truck' town. On my trip I spotted dozens of neglected trucks.
These next two apparently still run, so maybe they all aren't so neglected.
The Old Wood Truck - this is one of my favorite captures of the day. I like the cropped version.
Reminiscent of a Company Childhood - my childhood neighborhood backyard was a stone's throw from the railroad tracks. I hadn't seen one of these black and yellow BA&P signs in a very long time. A lot of empty space, but I love this photo, probably my favorite on the day. For personal reasons of course.
I heard strange noises from this shack. Hopefully whatever is in there is all right.
This neat little tunnel on the Copperway walk keeps walkers safe. Upon approaching I noticed a horde of grasshoppers spreading out of my path. It reminded me of a comment my friend Brian made the other day about people who go to Triple S to buy mass bee killer. His comment: Do these people even know what bees do???
Self portrait - I've never officially done one of these.
The sun found its way through the cloud as I walked out of the overhang on my way back to the car.
Here is the Copperway sign on the trail. Notice how the grass is exactly as green as in the logo.
Well, almost.
The way the clouds affect sunlight and shadow in Butte is truly unique. Especially in shots with headframes. WARNING: Several generic photos of gallus frames follow, but there is more good stuff after that.
My neighbor's dogs - I'm still searching for that elusive Butte Special shot. These bastards still bark at me and they've lived next to me for seven months. The malmute-looking one isn't too bad. The other uglier one used to jump on the neighbor's garage and sit there watching the neighborhood. I just wish they wouldn't bark so much.
Justice - these neat statues in Uptown Butte look neat when I get psychedelic on them.
This photo will go nice with the other blacknwhite photo I have from Evel Days. How about Butte, America?
I wasn't sure if I should call this "The End of an Era" or simply "The Beginning." You know the end of that trail is the beginning depending on which side you start from.
The Dumas Brothel - a Butte relic
There are a few old bridges like this around Butte.
This is a photo from the firecracker celebration on Chinese New Year in front of the Mai Wai museum.
Butte has a modest dragon, but it's better than none at all.
No one allowed to crash here anymore. There are a ton of killer homes in this neighborhood with a lot of potential in photography.
The vandals wrote some single line prose on a brick building in the same neighborhood. The cops may be dirty, but at least they don't spray paint "4:20" on the walls of schools. Our tax money is so well spent sometimes...
