For the 2023 FoR Challenge.
My wife and I try to walk in the mall regularly for exercise. The mall only has 9 stores still open which gives the walkers a good place to walk in an inside environment without a lot of traffic. Lately, we have seen handlers that train police dogs in the mall. On this day they were being observed by four men who gave instructions to the handlers on procedures of handling dogs in an environment where other people (civilians) are present. It was interesting to watch them go through their paces and watch the dogs sniff out some unknown object to us. Later, we saw one of the dogs, maybe this one, with a ball that had a strap on it in its mouth. It must have been placed later after the dog had already checked out and that area.
Fabulous shot and scene. Such a pity that your mall has so few stores. Covid sure has wrecked a lot in this world. Stellenbosch where we live used to be a huge tourist magnet with all the wonderful wine estates in the area. Since covid almost all the souvenir shops have closed and restaurants have popped up instead. It is a student town now.
@photographycrazy _ It's sad. A company has finally bought the mall with plans on tearing it down and building new stores, There has been an ongoing battle between the one major store that still occupies a mall store. This major business has continually obstructed in moving ahead until recently a judge rules that they no longer have a say in things. For some crazy reason, someone that owned the mall at the time gave them the power to have a say in what businesses could be brought in. Sears and Macy's used to have stores in the mall but they both closed about five years ago. The mall was built in the 1950s and played a major role until 5 years ago when many major businesses were closed, as the economic center of what is called the Shenango Valley.
@bluemoon - I know what you mean. It's odd because the first craze was plazas and they grew out of popularity when malls started springing up. Large businesses were getting away from owning their own buildings and entering into leasing space in these giant malls. Which was smart because everything was centralized and you were indoors where you could walk from store to store and save on gas. Then we started to see businesses leaving the malls and building their own stores again which spread everything out and made you have to drive more. Then pre-COVID and during COVID so many started shuttering their brick-and-mortar stores. Fortunately, they are willing to tear down and rebuilt as there are so many empty malls cluttering cities all across the nation.
The mall in our small town now has less than 9 stores, and is also a place for many to walk. At one time we had a well known furniture store and other well known shops. JCPenney held on the longest, but they finally closed their store here too.
That would be interesting to watch. Malls are struggling here as well. I read one article a while back though that documented one mall that combined stores and luxury apartments, actually making the stores like a little city- a supermarket, restaurants, coffee shops and the typical clothing and shoe stores. It turned the whole area around and saved the mall from falling apart or being abandoned. It will be interesting to see if that takes root in other places. Good shot- and I really like the way you processed it.
The mall where I use to shop only has a couple of store left. It is sad to see them all disappearing. Great shot. I would have loved to have seen them in training.
