Since I spent the past two chapters in the Irvington neighborhood of Indianapolis, I decided to keep the Irvington string going with this chapter as well.
I made several visit to Irvington in the years before launching Photo Potpourri, and not all of those were to photo-document the neighborhood.
The earliest was in the late 1980s, when I entered and ran several of the Pleasant Run Run 5-mile runs held annually in late October in tandem with the Irvington Halloween Festival. A good friend, Garry Petersen, still lived in Irvington when I ran my first PRR, but he would soon move to Franklin, Ind.
The most extensive stop I made in the neighborhood came on Sunday, May 25, 2008, the day before Memorial Day. I'd been to Irvington to run or volunteer for quite a few Pleasant Run Runs by this time, so I decided it was time to do a photo walk-through the neighborhood.
It was inspiring to see the number of homes in Irvington that had flags displayed outside to honor military service men and women who gave their lives for their country, as illustrated in the photo leading off the post.
One of my early stops on the walk-through was at Irving Circle Park (depicted in the first two photos below), where a fountain (non-functioning at the time) serves as a focal point of a circular park just south of Bonna Avenue with South Audubon Road flanking its circumference and picking up its normal path on the park's north and south ends and University Avenue doing the same on the east and west.
A statue of Washington Irving, the early 19th century author, essayist and diplomat after whom the community is named, appeared at the park's north end (at least, it was there in 2008 when I made my visit).
A couple churches caught my eye during my walk-through, and my interest in them might have had something to do with my subsequent ongoing project to photograph churches for a primary gallery at my SmugMug website. One of the churches was Irvington First Baptist (above), which appears to have a stucco exterior of some sort. at Irvington Methodist Church (below), located in the center of the circular roundabout of Adubon Place just north of Washington Street, it was this set of doors and gray-painted concrete stairs that caught my eye.
Standing at the top of those church stairs, one looks south (above) and sees the view of Audubon Place circling in the foreground and Lowell Avenue forking left and right above that. The photo below is a closeup of the right fork of Lowell Avenue. This small-boulder property perimeter wall is not far from the south end of the Audbon Avenue roundabout. I'm sure it inspired me to pursue a similar composition while I was doing a photo walk-through of the Old Northside Neighborhood of Indianapolis in summer 2011.
Going through the May 25, 2008, shoot in Irvington to compose this chapter, I was reminded how much I concentrated a good deal on composing images of incidental things ("incidental" for lack of a better word), such as the sculpture above, which was perched on a stone wall near the sidewalk entrance to a residence in the neighborhood. And the image below reminded me that at the time, I was processing my photos through a photo editing software by Microsoft, which was equipped with a multitude of image-changing filters, such as the one I used on the snaking tree neighborhood branch below.
The trifecta of slender tree trunks leaning to the left above is what caught my eye in deciding to make the above composition, and the bicycles' unusual vertical parking position -- and location -- is what caught my eye to make the photo below. For 18 years, beginning in 1998, Dufour's in Irvington (above) provided non-fried casual fare -- quiches and pot pies among them -- to customers for breakfast and lunch in Irvington at the northwest corner of Washington Street and Audubon Road. It closed in 2016. The photo below is an image of the full northside of Washington Street in the Dufour's block, with Dufour's at the far right where the brown roofing ends.
Above and below: Across Washington Street from Dufour's and a block west is the Irving Theater, which survives today although not without sundry struggles along the way. At the time I photographed it in 2008, I believe it was being used periodically as a venue for music concerts. 
Above: EclecticPond Theatre used the upper floors of the nearby Masonic Lodge 666 to stage its productions in the early years of the millennium's second decade. EclecticPond appears to no longer exist.
Irvington was the second location for The Bread Ladies artisan bakery, opening in 2007, not long before I did my walk-around in Irvington. The business, owned by Donna Johnson and Donna Eckler, started as a vendor in the Greenfield Farmers Market in the late 1990s then grew to a stand-alone Greenfield store in 2002. At some point, the Irvington store closed; this spot at 4 Johnson Avenue, just south of Washington Street, today is occupied by Smash'd Burger Bar.
Above: The fronts of businesses in the 5500 block of Washington Street in May 2008.Above: Another composition of lawn sculptures (there are more such photos coming up). Much of Irvington is known for its old, but well-kept homes, so I figured I should include at least one more that caught my eye, as this one above did in May 2008. The close up of the welcoming sign below was in front of another home.
Not exactly a flattering feature on a home (above), but the irregular horizontal slats made for an interesting photograph composition, I felt. The flag below also caught my eye.
Yet another lawn sculpture (above), and two more ornamental house features (first two photos below). I made two more picture-taking visits through Irvington after that May 2008 walk-around. One came in October 2009, when I decided to stop in at Ellenberger Park to capture the park in its autumn colors. The first seven shots below were among those I took that day.
By this time, I had already had started filling a gallery at my SmugMug site with pictures of interesting public benches that I came across in my sundry photo outings. I added this one (above and below) to the collection. Above and below: This was another bench that I think became part of the aforementioned collection. I also used this bench and vantage point to do a personal study of depth of field. The photo above was taken using an aperture of 3.2; the one below, 7.1. I wish I could remember what lens I was using, but I don't remember. It's possible it was my Sigma macro f/2.8 lens. Two more closeups (above and below), again probably using the Sigma macro f/2.8. Above and below: I mentioned higher up that I was taken by the doors and steps leading to the main door to the Irvington United Methodist Church on Audubon Place Circle in my May 2008 walk-around. But at that point, I didn't show you any pictures of the church itself. Here are two that I took of the church in the autumn 2009 visit to the neighborhood. This building once served as the home of the Butler University president when the school was still operating in Irvington. This building at the Bona Thompson Memorial Center several blocks away are the only buildings of the original Butler campus that are still standing.
After leaving the 2008 Irvington Walk in the Park and Farmers Market, I swung by the Bona Thompson Memorial Center (above), 5350 E. University Avenue to grab this picture and the three below. The Thompson Center building is one of two remaining structures that were part of the original campus of Butler University, which had been located in Irvington before moving to its much more expansive site on the Northside of Indianapolis. The Thompson Center is home to the Irvington Historical Society and its museum.
Coming tomorrow: Chapter 7, Lockerbie Square Neighborhood, Indianapolis
Previously in Catching Up ... on pre-blog years:
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