This parking lot is near a bank I use. It belongs to a once thriving steel mill that was a major employer in town. It has long been closed although a steel company owns it and I think a few people work there to a degree. Probably just used as a warehouse or something. There once were a few thriving industrial plants in town that provided a robust economy for the blue-collar crowd. They are all shut down or converted to small-scale operations. The town dried up and we are left with a half boarded up downtown and no where normal people can make a good living. There are, of course, plenty of retail jobs but they only satisfy the very young or very old and don’t provide much for the people in between.
Okay, back to the photography :-). This shot taken with my Pentax K20D and DA17-70. Converted to black and white with Nik Silver Efex, Ilford HP5 simulation and yellow filter effect.
No Parking
© David Guidas
What I Pic 
I really like this image. I’ve been messing around with B&W conversions some more and there are so many options it is hard to settle on a single conversion…
Thanks. I agree about settling on a look for a B&W shot. I usually try a few different ones, based on standard looks for the type of scene, and just narrow it down.