View allAll Photos Tagged Blight
The avenue bower built by the male Satin Bowerbird is surrounded by carefully selected objects, collected by him from the surrounding area. Clearly, blue is his preferred colour. Before humans drastically altered the environment, the blue objects would have been flowers, berries, shells and other natural treasures. The objects that prevail now are largely plastic - the indestructible material that is currently choking our waterways and blighting our natural landscape.
Gardening has always been a bittersweet activity for me. There's a wonderful sense of hope and optimism setting the plants into the earth in late spring. Feeling the soil in my hands and realizing that winter is truly over and an entire summer lies ahead. I nurture the little seedlings and look after them daily as they grow and eventually mature. Hopefully supplying a bountiful harvest. But even that at times seems secondary to the process of having a garden and tending to it. Very much a Zen experience for me. But suddenly and all too soon (about two and a half months in these parts) the garden slips into decline. Tomato and cucumber leaves wilt and yellow. The once lush plants begin to look thin and leggy. And eventually the plants simply stop producing crops. Inevitably I have to go in and pull up the plants and I always hate that part. All these thoughts and more crossed my mind when I came across this little garden last weekend. One look at the tomato vines and I knew the end was near. I went back today to check on their condition, but there was nothing left. Only the empty planters remained.
Mature trees on overgrown vacant lots, evidence that the West Side has been blighted for many decades now.
2000 block of South Albany.
House in dire need of some repairs. It will probably be remodeled instead of torn down.
Nikon F2
55mm Nikkor lens
Fujifilm ISO 200
It's taken me 4 years, but I've finally composed a group shot of my OC superhero team...
Defending Brickhaven from those that wish to harm it and its peaceful, law-abiding residents are:
Überfrau -
Bio: Ursula Eisern is a super-powered former athlete from the Feminist Republic Aus Uberia (F.R.A.U), a former Eastern Bloc communist country, overthrown and now run by a female govenrment. Ursula was sent to Brickhaven as an ambassador and 'overseer' for the interests of F.R.A.U. In her civilian guise Eisern masquerades as a Phys Ed. teacher.
Skills/Powers: Enhanced Strength and stamina. Limited flight.
Eagle Patriot -
Bio: Patrick Payton was the lawyer of choice for every crook, criminal and corrupt corporation in Brickhaven until he was beaten and left for dead in the desert. Follwong a spiritual epiphany he realised he must right the wrongs he had allowed and now fights for truth and justice as a lawyer by day, and by night as the 'Eagle Patriot'.
Skills/Powers: His 'eagle sense' enables him to 'feel' slightly into the future, predicting the moves of his enemies and sensing danger.
HawkOwl -
Bio: Orphaned at a young age, Hawk Owl has sworn vengance on those violent criminals that blight BrickHaven. Now a crime-fighting vigilante, he has no quarms about using the same violent tactics to bring offenders to justice.
Skill/Powers: Enhanced healing ability (though too-frequent or rapid regeneration puts increased strain on his heart). Enhanced vision, smell and hearing abilities. Superb martial artist.
Mayan Maiden -
Bio: Maia Martinez was anthropology student with an interest in the Mayan civilization. On discovering an ancient amulet on a research trip she became imbued with 'the Spirit of the Jaguar'. Maia now works as a curator in Brickhaven's Museum of Culture (MOC) by day, taking on the mantle of 'Mayan Maiden' when the times comes to protect the environmental and cultural habitats she cares so much about.
Skills/Powers: Enhanced strength, speed, agility and seemingly bullet proof skin. She is also able to communicate with animals on a simple level.
HammerTime -
Bio: Mike 'DJ HAMMER' Stanley spent his days working on a construction site to pay the bills, his real passion being his the nights he spent as a resident DJ in clubs around BrickHaven. One night, whilst working late digging the foundations for a new building he was struck by lightning as he unearthed two mystical two stone hammers that had been buried deep underground.
Skills/Powers: Superhuman strength and the ability to create thunder and lightning when the hammers are struck together.
NightKnite -
Bio: Kelvin Knite III was born into a wealthy family. His father was the director of 'KniteWatch Industries' specialising in security solutions. Despite his privileged upbringing, Kelvin was a sickly child, suffering from the same hereditary disease that killed his grandfather before he reached the age of 50.
Kelvin vowed to find a cure and developed a form of nano-technology that would attack the disease at a cellular level, Kelvin experimented with these 'NanKnites' on himself and found that not only did they slow the progression of his disease, but also enhanced his strength, senses and reflexes.
Skills/Powers: NanKnite technology has increased his strength, reflexes and healing but must be recharged every 48 hours. Various other technology from his company KniteWatch.
Saxon -
Bio: Former police dog, Saxon, now re-homed with a kindly old lady, discovers an alien meteor when digging in the garden one evening. On biting the alien rock Saxon gained super powers.
Skills/Powers: His growl is like thunder, able to knock a man off his feet, his bark a concentrated sonic blast, and he can leap a building with a single bound (and a run up).
Racing Line -
Bio: Simon Bolt was a skilled racing car driver until, while testing an experimental bio-organic fuel, he was involved in a crash. The fuel bonded with his cells giving him super-speed and saving him from certain death.
Skills/Powers: Super-speed.
Congrats if you read through all that!
Built, as always, for the League of Heroes Flickr group.
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This is an abstract/ experimental video piece created by myself and Derek Olson of Peak Definition Productions.
The uncut version can be found here:
The area that was to become West Palm Beach was settled in the late 1870s and 1880s by a few hundred settlers who called the vicinity "Lake Worth Country." These settlers were a diverse community from different parts of the United States and the world. They included founding families such at the Potters and the Lainharts, who would go on to become leading members of the business community in the fledgling city. The first white settlers in Palm Beach County lived around Lake Worth, then an enclosed freshwater lake, named for Colonel William Jenkins Worth, who had fought in the Second Seminole War in Florida in 1842. Most settlers engaged in the growing of tropical fruits and vegetables for shipment the north via Lake Worth and the Indian River. By 1890, the U.S. Census counted over 200 people settled along Lake Worth in the vicinity of what would become West Palm Beach. The area at this time also boasted a hotel, the "Cocoanut House", a church, and a post office. The city was platted by Henry Flagler as a community to house the servants working in the two grand hotels on the neighboring island of Palm Beach, across Lake Worth in 1893, coinciding with the arrival of the Florida East Coast railroad. Flagler paid two area settlers, Captain Porter and Louie Hillhouse, a combined sum of $45,000 for the original town site, stretching from Clear Lake to Lake Worth.
On November 5, 1894, 78 people met at the "Calaboose" (the first jail and police station located at Clematis St. and Poinsettia, now Dixie Hwy.) and passed the motion to incorporate the Town of West Palm Beach in what was then Dade County (now Miami-Dade County). This made West Palm Beach the first incorporated municipality in Dade County and in South Florida. The town council quickly addressed the building codes and the tents and shanties were replaced by brick, brick veneer, and stone buildings. The city grew steadily during the 1890s and the first two decades of the 20th century, most residents were engaged in the tourist industry and related services or winter vegetable market and tropical fruit trade. In 1909, Palm Beach County was formed by the Florida State Legislature and West Palm Beach became the county seat. In 1916, a new neo-classical courthouse was opened, which has been painstakingly restored back to its original condition, and is now used as the local history museum.
The city grew rapidly in the 1920s as part of the Florida land boom. The population of West Palm Beach quadrupled from 1920 to 1927, and all kinds of businesses and public services grew along with it. Many of the city's landmark structures and preserved neighborhoods were constructed during this period. Originally, Flagler intended for his Florida East Coast Railway to have its terminus in West Palm, but after the area experienced a deep freeze, he chose to extend the railroad to Miami instead.
The land boom was already faltering when city was devastated by the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. The Depression years of the 1930s were a quiet time for the area, which saw slight population growth and property values lower than during the 1920s. The city only recovered with the onset of World War II, which saw the construction of Palm Beach Air Force Base, which brought thousands of military personnel to the city. The base was vital to the allied war effort, as it provided an excellent training facility and had unparalleled access to North Africa for a North American city. Also during World War II, German U-Boats sank dozens of merchant ships and oil tankers just off the coast of West Palm Beach. Nearby Palm Beach was under black out conditions to minimize night visibility to German U-boats.
The 1950s saw another boom in population, partly due to the return of many soldiers and airmen who had served in the vicinity during the war. Also, the advent of air conditioning encouraged growth, as year-round living in a tropical climate became more acceptable to northerners. West Palm Beach became the one of the nation's fastest growing metropolitan areas during the 1950s; the city's borders spread west of Military Trail and south to Lake Clarke Shores. However, many of the city's residents still lived within a narrow six-block wide strip from the south to north end. The neighborhoods were strictly segregated between White and African-American populations, a legacy that the city still struggles with today. The primary shopping district remained downtown, centered around Clematis Street.
In the 1960s, Palm Beach County's first enclosed shopping mall, the Palm Beach Mall, and an indoor arena were completed. These projects led to a brief revival for the city, but in the 1970s and 1980s crime continued to be a serious issue and suburban sprawl continued to drain resources and business away from the old downtown area. By the early 1990s there were very high vacancy rates downtown, and serious levels of urban blight.
Since the 1990s, developments such as CityPlace and the preservation and renovation of 1920s architecture in the nightlife hub of Clematis Street have seen a downtown resurgence in the entertainment and shopping district. The city has also placed emphasis on neighborhood development and revitalization, in historic districts such as Northwood, Flamingo Park, and El Cid. Some neighborhoods still struggle with blight and crime, as well as lowered property values caused by the Great Recession, which hit the region particularly hard. Since the recovery, multiple new developments have been completed. The Palm Beach Mall, located at the Interstate 95/Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard interchange became abandoned as downtown revitalized - the very mall that initiated the original abandonment of the downtown. The mall was then redeveloped into the Palm Beach Fashion Outlets in February 2014. A station for All Aboard Florida, a high-speed passenger rail service serving Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, and Orlando, is under construction as of July 2015.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
My photos taken at the National Butterfly Centre, Mission, South Texas, have almost run out, so you can sigh a huge sigh of relief : ) I had hoped to finish them today, but I don't think that will happen. After that, I have just a few photos taken at another place that we called in at later in the afternoon. Unfortunately, we only had an hour there before closing time, but how glad we were that we found this place. The highlight there was watching 25 Yellow-crowned Night-Herons coming in to roost for the night in the trees! What a great sight this was, and we were lucky enough to have a good, close view of these gorgeous birds. We also saw some Purple Martins and their circular, hanging nest "boxes".
On Day 6 of our birding holiday in South Texas, 24 March 2019, we left our hotel in Kingsville, South Texas, and started our drive to Mission, where we would be staying at La Quinta Inn & Suites for three nights. On the first stretch of our drive, we were lucky enough to see several bird species, including a Golden-fronted Woodpecker, Hooded Oriole, Red-tailed Hawk, Crested Caracara, Harris's Hawk, Pyrrhuloxia male (looks similar to a Cardinal) and a spectacular Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. I'm not sure if this stretch is called Hawk Alley.
We had a long drive further south towards Mission, with only a couple of drive-by photos taken en route (of a strangely shaped building that turned out to be a deserted seed storage building). Eventually, we reached our next planned stop, the National Butterfly Centre. This was a great place, my favourite part of it being the bird feeding station, where we saw all sorts of species and reasonably close. Despite the name of the place, we only saw a few butterflies while we were there. May have been the weather or, more likely, the fact that I was having so much fun at the bird feeding station. We also got to see Spike, a giant African Spurred Tortoise. All the nature/wildlife parks that we visited in South Texas had beautiful visitor centres and usually bird feeding stations. And there are so many of these parks - so impressive!
nationalbutterflycenter.org/nbc-multi-media/in-the-news/1...
"Ten years ago, the North American Butterfly Association broke ground for what has now become the largest native plant botanical garden in the United States. This 100-acre preserve is home to Spike (who thinks he is a butterfly) and the greatest volume and variety of wild, free-flying butterflies in the nation. In fact, USA Today calls the National Butterfly Center, in Mission, Texas, 'the butterfly capitol of the USA'." From the Butterfly Centre's website.
The Centre is facing huge challenges, as a result of the "Border Wall". The following information is from the Centre's website.
www.nationalbutterflycenter.org/about-nbc/maps-directions...
"No permission was requested to enter the property or begin cutting down trees. The center was not notified of any roadwork, nor given the opportunity to review, negotiate or deny the workplan. Same goes for the core sampling of soils on the property, and the surveying and staking of a “clear zone” that will bulldoze 200,000 square feet of habitat for protected species like the Texas Tortoise and Texas Indigo, not to mention about 400 species of birds. The federal government had decided it will do as it pleases with our property, swiftly and secretly, in spite of our property rights and right to due process under the law."
"What the Border Wall will do here:
1) Eradicate an enormous amount of native habitat, including host plants for butterflies, breeding and feeding areas for wildlife, and lands set aside for conservation of endangered and threatened species-- including avian species that migrate N/S through this area or over-winter, here, in the tip of the Central US Flyway.
2) Create devastating flooding to all property up to 2 miles behind the wall, on the banks of the mighty Rio Grande River, here.
3) Reduce viable range land for wildlife foraging and mating. This will result in greater competition for resources and a smaller gene pool for healthy species reproduction. Genetic "bottlenecks" can exacerbate blight and disease.
IN ADDITION:
4) Not all birds can fly over the wall, nor will all butterfly species. For example, the Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, found on the southern border from Texas to Arizona, only flies about 6 ft in the air. It cannot overcome a 30 ft vertical wall of concrete and steel.
5) Nocturnal and crepuscular wildlife, which rely on sunset and sunrise cues to regulate vital activity, will be negatively affected by night time flood lighting of the "control zone" the DHS CBP will establish along the wall and new secondary drag roads. The expansion of these areas to vehicular traffic will increase wildlife roadkill.
6) Animals trapped north of the wall will face similar competition for resources, cut off from native habitat in the conservation corridor and from water in the Rio Grande River and adjacent resacas. HUMANS, here, will also be cut off from our only source of fresh water, in this irrigated desert.
finally someone other than my pets agreed to let me photograph them! :) (my lil sis)
I've defeated myself,
Left myself behind,
Walking over the pieces
Of my crumbling mind,
And I'm diseased
(Deep beneath my skin)
I bleed on the outside-
But I'm blighted within.
I have damned myself
With this consuming pain,
As I let this poison
Tear up my veins.
Now my flesh is rotting,
My soul is dying,
There is no heaven,
This drug is lying.
And I'm diseased
(Deep beneath my skin)
I rust on the outside-
But I'm blighted within...
I'm torn on the surface-
(It's peeling off),
And inside-
I'm empty...
(Z.Q.)
the Ohio River banks are marred by a few derelict marinas, which often used now-abandoned mobile vehicles as their offices
Located on Dexter Avenue in Detroit, this abandoned bar was in a pretty decayed area. The sign used to have neon on it but it was removed at some point.
Above,the Sun rises, behind the sky's softening hue. While below, contrast seems to be the order of everyday --- high rise buildings and informal settlements cram themselves in every nook and cranny, without much regard to one another
Empty art deco jewelry store in downtown New Kensington. NewKen, like most of the river towns in Western Pa. thrived for decades, but were too dependent on one or two industries. In New Ken's case, it was Alcoa with his huge plants that manufactured everything from sheet foil, to airplane parts, to Wearever cookware. Much of the original business district has been torn down, as one building after the other falls to decay. But this gem (pun intended) still remains as a lovely reminder.