Ride It Sculpture Park

Last January my friend Clara and I decided to visit a random skate park in Detroit that she had found on Instagram. It was an unusually warm day that was lacking snow, so we figured there might be a person or two around.

We ended up enjoying that visit so much that we decided it was necessary to make another stop by, so in early October we made our way across the border for another adventure.

While crossing The Ambassador Bridge on this sunny autumn day, I remembered how much I love the view from this crumbling landmark that I usually avoid (I prefer not to give my money to Moroun, but that's a whole other story). I wondered how some photos would turn out from the window of a moving car, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

There were some that were unfortunately disrupted by the bridge itself:

But I did manage to get some that used the structure in an interesting way.

Overall, the most difficult part of this spur of the moment exercise was getting a straight shot. While they turned out better than expected, I did still have to do some straightening in post.

Once we made it to the skatepark, we were happy to see at least one skater scooting around.

This guy's name was something like Eric or Aaron, and this was apparently his first day on a skateboard. He recently moved to Detroit from Traverse City for school, and found Ride It on Google. He was nice enough to let Clara play around on his board when she wanted a break from her longboard, and didn't mind when I grabbed some shots of him.

I had some trouble with the mottled lighting from the park's trees, but like the chances to work under different conditions for some different sorts of practice. By the end of the hour or so that we spent in the park, I was getting some decent shots.