Beautiful Homes Under Blue Skies In Dundalk Maryland

Photography by David Robert Crews

These are some of the nice homes in the "ship streets" of Old Dundalk. They are unique, historically significant, 1918 era English style slate roof homes.

I am a long time local citizen of Dundalk, and although I’m a disabled veteran living on a small Veterans Administration Non-Service Connected Disability Pension, I’m a free lance writer and photographer who has been doing all I can towards helping my community with its ongoing, muti-faceted, heavily supported, well deserved revitalization.

Dundalk is a community which was planned, in detail, by the Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architects (OBLA) firm. The Olmsted firm was responsible for designing the planned residential developments of Roland Park, Guilford, Homeland, Dundalk, Gibson Island and Northwood. They also designed fine country estates, such as the grounds for Clifton Mansion, Greenmount Cemetery, and the campus of Johns Hopkins University. They transformed private estate grounds into public parks, including Carroll, Clifton, Leakin, and Wyman Park.

Dundalk’s first major housing stock was built as homes for war industry workers during World War One, then greatly expanded during World War Two. The houses in and around Dundalk are the well maintained homes of hard working, patriotic, community oriented families who have helped build this great nation of ours. The folks who live in, or who once lived in, these homes earned incomes for themselves and their families primarily by working in the Bethlehem Steel Mill, the Sparrows Point Shipyard, the Western Electric Plant, the Chevrolet Plant, and Bendix Radio Corporation, which were all important industries during both war time and peace time too.

We still have families full of willing and able workers living in this fine housing stock here in Dundalk. Some local, adult residents are doing real well in their chosen occupations, but some are hurting for good jobs, because many of our previously productive industries have either cut down drastically on the numbers of employees in their work force, have moved to other countries, or became obsolete.

Dundalk is a once vibrant community which has a long, rich history of supporting our country, yours and mine, in just about every way possible.

Ever since our country was founded, a considerable percentage of us local citizens around here have served in the Armed Services of the United States or were/are dedicated war industry workers. Some folks around here have worked to win our wars both in civilian life and in the military. When the terrifying armed conflicts end, the members of the work force around here do their jobs at the same productive pace that helped win the sincerely welcomed peace.

We have the Veterans Park in Dundalk Village Shopping Center, where there is a memorial which lists the names of our local service personnel who died in World War Two, the Korean War, and Vietnam. Over in another section of Veterans Park, which sits on the other side of the Dundalk Post Office from the War Memorial in Veterans Park, there is a plaque honoring veterans of the Gulf War. Many of our tried and true patriotic fellow citizens of the Dundalk area join the military and whole heartily help this country to remain a free democracy.

According to the 1945-46 Dundalk Directory, "We can truthfully say our National Anthem was written here in Dundalk, Maryland." This is a great point of pride for Dundalk.

During both wars and times of peace, the community of Dundalk Maryland has always been part of the strong backbone of our freedom loving nation in just about every way possible.


ursusdave
photography
dundalk maryland
David Robert Crews

Watering The Yard In Watersedge

Photography by David Robert Crews

Here's one of our patriotic, local Dundalk retirees working on his front yard garden. Those old blue collar worker guys are often working on something in or around the house. They have some nice homes that they bought a long time ago and have always put a lot of time, elbow grease, and money into to maintain and improve for their family's comfort and security.


ursusdave
photography
dundalk maryland
David Robert Crews

Family In The Front Yard Of Their Watersedge Home

Photography by David Robert Crews

This shot was taken in the family centric neighborhood of Dundalk called Watersedge, but it’s a normal kind of scene often seen anywhere in Dundalk.

Those are two grandparents and their visiting granddaughter. The girl’s parents were inside the house relaxing during their vacation, one was the son or daughter of the elderly woman and man out in the yard. This was during the week of the Fourth of July, and the girl and her parents were visiting when Dundalk is at its finest and most fun—with about the oldest, biggest, and definitely the best 4th of July parade in Maryland, the annual fireworks, and the fun filled Heritage Fair all happening that week.

The shot was taken during a week with the worst outdoor light for photography I’ve ever been up against. That week, I was out working on a series of shots for a project titled A Week In The Life Of Dundalk, which was sponsored by Dundalk Community College and Fuji film. It was an all volunteer project which was open to anyone who wanted to take photos of anything and anyone in Dundalk. Some amateurs, photo students, and a few local pros all contributed work for this successful project. The photos were later shown in a gallery at DCC; out of eighty-some prints displayed, twenty-some were mine. It was because I told the Watersedge family that I was working on this that they allowed me to photograph them. Unfortunately, that only allowed me a one time chance to photograph these subjects and while being stuck with using the lousiest natural light I have ever worked with. That week was hot, humid, and overcast with thick, polluted air that only allowed harsh, lousy, bright dismal-gray, glaring renderings of sunlight to filter down to where I was working hard on my Week In The Life Of Dundalk photography, it was depressing—Global Warming and all that pollution crap at its worst.

Photographically speaking, this photo is too harsh looking for further publication, but I did the best I could with what I had to work with. I did a lot of custom photo lab work on it, but couldn’t overcome the photo negative’s limitations. It took a lot of "burning in" (photo lab talk) to get the small section of visible sky even close to acceptable, then the white siding on the house took a lot of work to get the detail to show instead of being a blur of glaring light, and I couldn’t get that white sign of the bike to show what was written on it. If I scanned in the negative and learned how to use one of those digital photo shop software programs on a computer I could probably straighten all this stuff out, which is not at all pleasing to my eye.

I am using this photo as an example of both what I do right in my photography, and what is wrong with the photo that precludes it from consideration as a final print but that I could straighten out if I had all the up to date computer equipment necessary. What is right about it is the position my subjects where in when I squeezed the shutter, they were moving around some between shots and I was after completely candid photos so I did not try to ‘direct’ the scene, the angle I shot from was while leaning uncomfortably over the fence but it is a good angle, the composition of the whole photo is quite eye pleasing to me. What I know is photographically wrong with the print is that the contrast is too bland but harsh, it needs some more burning in on the bike sign, and the tiny patch of sky could be replaced with some blue sky. Most of the wrong about this photo could be overcome by reprinting it after working on it in a new computer with the best photo shop software loaded on it.

This blog posting is mostly about what I can do in photography if ever get the funding to do it. I’m a disabled U.S. Army Veteran doing all I can while surviving on a small Veterans Administration Non-Service Connected Disability Pension. Because of my disabilities, I can’t do all I’m personally driven to do and work hard at, but I could do more than what I get to do if I had more money to put into my photography. I could just collect my monthly government checks and sit around watching TV and listening to selections from my extensive recorded music library, but the lack of accomplishments would kill me quick.

I need to contribute as much as I can to this world of ours, and my photography does that in many ways. My photos give visual pleasure to people, and many of the folks who view my work feel the good feelings that come from fond memories kindled by looking at my photographs of any subjects which are familiar to them. The photos on this web site are an unimpeachably fair representation of a place and its population which are so miserably misunderstood, unfairly disrespected, and publicly misrepresented and mistreated by so many. I can’t stand the lies about Dundalk, and I am driven to show the truth through my photographs. I have lived in many kinds of places besides here: small country towns, the big city, a mid-sized city, world famous resort cities, up in the woods ten miles from the nearest tiny town, old neighborhoods, newer neighborhoods; this gives me a balanced point of view about Dundalk. This is not that bad of a place, plus it has tremendous potential as a revitalized modern community.


ursusdave
photography
dundalk maryland
David Robert Crews

Watersedge Teenagers

Photography by David Robert Crews

These kids are hangin' out across the street from Watersedge Park, which is one of Dundalk's waterfront parks. From where they are standing they can look across the waters of Bear Creek to see the old Bethlehem Steel Mill and former Sparrows Point Shipyard.

30 or so years before this photo was taken, I used drive by this spot on some Saturday or Sunday afternoons to see if any of my old schoolmates who grew up in Watersedge were hangin' out around there. Watersedge is a neighborhood where there are muti-generations of families owning their own nice homes, any of these kids who hang out here might be an old friend of mine's child or grandchild, niece or nephew. It's a good place for them to socialize in public, because the families who live in the homes along that street may know the kids or their parents or grandparents or aunts and uncles, or one of those families' kids might be out there with them, so there's little chance of any hooliganisms happening out there.


ursusdave
photography
dundalk maryland
David Robert Crews

Elmo Often Visits Dundalk

Photography by David Robert Crews

Kevin Clash is the voice and soul of world famous Elmo. Kevin grew up in the Turners Station neighborhood of Dundalk, and he graduated from Dundalk High School. He comes back to his old neighborhood to visit his family a lot and once a year or so he puts on a free show and autograph signing event. Yep kids, that is really the real Elmo in this photo!!

Kevin has worked with so many famous people that he's probly lost count of the major film, TV, and music recording stars he knows. He's even had the leader of the United Nations, Secretary General Kofe Annan, on the Sesame Street TV show having fun with Elmo.

ursusdave
photography
dundalk maryland
David Robert Crews

Sunset Over Dundalk Elementary School

Photography by David Robert Crews

I took this photograph while standing in the front door of my Dundalk Townhouse.

ursusdave
photography
dundalk maryland
David Robert Crews

Young Couple In Merritt Point Park

Photography by David Robert Crews

Here's a typical summer weekday scene in one of the large waterfront parks in Dundalk. During warm weather weekends these parks have a lot of families and other groups having big picnics with lots of food and fun. The parks are well used by many people, well cared for by Baltimore County, and I have enjoyed spending time in them since the 1960s.

This photo was taken on a terribly overcast, hot and hazy day. I have more and better photos of this park, but I need to scan them into JPEG files.


ursusdave
photography
dundalk maryland
David Robert Crews

The Last Of The Horses Who Live In Dundalk

Photography by David Robert Crews

When my family moved from the Bungalows in Sparrows Point over to Dundalk, during 1955, there was still a bit of active farmland there. There was a cattle pasture and dairy farm right across the road from where this property is today. Sometime after the dairy farm went out of business there, it had a horse boarding stable in the early 1970s. There have been horses living in this area almost constantly since the first Europeans arrived here. Now it's just these three horses left.

This photo is as much about an example of the nice open space that is in Dundalk as it is of anything else.


ursusdave
photography
dundalk maryland
David Robert Crews

The Sun

Photography by David Robert Crews

For years, I had wanted to produce a photograph of the Sun showing its heat-wavy, fire-spouting, ever-so-slowly diminishing edges. And by yimminy I got 'er!


ursusdave
photography
dundalk maryland
David Robert Crews