Winslow Through a Visitor’s Eye

Seeing your town through the lens of a visitor can sometimes bring a new appreciation to things we may take for granted. Let’s take a look at Winslow through a visitor’s eye.

Doug Melin is an attorney for a major petroleum company. His work often takes him away from home in Findlay Ohio and puts him on the road in various towns across the country—but he’s okay with that, because Doug found a unique way to explore each town he visits.

He photographs the buildings and categorizes them on a site called Zenfolio—like a yellow pages of images. For example, what do Elks Lodges across the country look like? He has a category for that. It’s an interesting study in architecture trends from city-to-city.

From his website’s About Page:

CIVIC VIRTUES—Galleries of Urban Scenes and Details: Main Street is the climax of civilization. … Such is our comfortable tradition and sure faith. Would he not betray himself an alien cynic who should otherwise portray Main Street, or distress the citizens by speculating whether there may not be other faiths?  – Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

So how did this hobby begin?

One night in 2006 while in St. Paul Minneapolis, Doug went for a walk. He found the sight of the capitol building at midnight so captivating, he decided to make a photograph.

He now has more than 10,000 images of cities—including Winslow Arizona.

Winslow Through a Visitor’s Eye

A few weeks ago he had a business meeting in Phoenix, so spent the night walking around our town and making images.

Some of the things that struck him: The blue light and the nearly full moon. The train rolling down the tracks. The post office. The Masonic lodge.

Doug believes in putting the very best face on whatever he photographs. You can see the full library of Doug’s Winslow images by clicking this link. For the best viewing experience, open the slideshow.

On an interesting side note…

Winslow helped expand Doug‘s pop-culture lexicon! He kept hearing about this Standin’ on the Corner thing in Winslow, and assumed the song everyone was talking about was the 1950 Frank Loesser song from Guys and Dolls:

Standing on the corner watching all the girls go by…

Doug knows little about classic rock or pop music and wasn’t at all familiar with the Eagles song Take it Easy. Glad we could add to your musical library, Doug!

Thank you for visiting our town, and for making such beautiful images.

Until next time…

Take it Easy!

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