View allAll Photos Tagged decayed
Prompt: Scotland, decaying churchyard, Ireland, broken tombstones and bushes, romantic gothic style, 32k uhd, dark grays and browns, and intricate details, cloudy sky, gray colors, hazy gray, --ar 4:5 --personalize uc6jorl --stylize 250 --v 6.1
The #MacroMondays #Decay theme
Emerging Glistening Ink Cap fruiting bodies reveal that the log they are growing on is being consumed from the inside.
Fungi, especially when seen on wood, is associated with decay, but it's much more complicated than that. One whole group of fungi, the mycorrhizal types, do not contribute to decay at all. They grow in the ground, linking to and even penetrating plant roots to provide them with nutrients and minerals while accepting in return sugars the plant concerned created through photosynthesis. In so doing they enable the tree or plant to create oxygen which we find pretty desirable within our biosphere. Indeed, as 90% of trees and plants rely on this symbiotic relationship, no fungi would pretty quickly mean no us.
But this week we are talking decay, so I've photographed a saprobic fungus. Saprobic fungi consume dead or dying wood and are among the very few organisms capable of breaking down lignin and cellulose which are the main components of wood.
Here we may think we are seeing three fungi. Wrong! We see three fruiting bodies almost certainly from the same organism which grows throughout the year, out of sight, in this case within the log from which these mushrooms are erupting. The unseen part is called mycelium, which is made from bundles of very thin threads called hyphae (hi-fee). They are analogous to plant roots, except they are much better at taking nutrients from their environment. The fruiting bodies are used to disperse spores which, like plant seeds, will create the next generation.
Plants needed fungi to colonise the land in the first place. Fungi teamed up with bacteria and algae to form lichens which broke down rock to create the first soil. As the earliest plants had no roots to embed themselves into and exploit this new habitat, they relied upon mycorrhizal fungi to join with them, lending their mycelia to provide plants with water and nutrients in exchange for sugars. Plant roots took a further 40 million years to evolve.
The log from which these mushrooms erupt is destined to become nutrient rich soil due to the actions of a variety of fungi which use their hyphae to penetrate and explore their host, while deploying enzymes and acids to eat it. The nutrients released will nurture new plants and trees which themselves will be nourished by mycorrhizal fungi and consumed by saprobic fungi in an everlasting (we hope) cycle of life-building and decay which allows us to live.
Finally, I hereby declare Fungi Season 2025 open. HMM all.
A window in a former lace factory. Nottingham, July 2015.
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Most Interesting Shots - Flickriver
To me Autumn is a beautiful season. I find out that my friend thinks otherwise. To her all these colors are signs of death, and brings no hapiness.
For me even the decay is fascinating, it is amazing how diverse perceptions are .
+ Flickr is a much nicer experience when you stop commenting and start looking. For that very reason, I like to just use the fav button on your work. Why? here is my idea, contacts that I follow are marked as friends, this way I can filter them and narrow it down to a small group of people. Then I use the slideshow in the contact page and use full screen . I turn off the auto-play and turn on the Show info . I then just view each and every photo at my pleasure and mark it with a fav if I like it.
It is a much nicer way of viewing, if you have any alternative method, let me know.
Hi Flickr Friends!
ok i know i'm late -- this is my post-halloween entry. I think this is one of the oldest buildings in Kuwait City.
this is overprocessed, btw LOL! I wanted to make it look creepy/spooky.
thanks for all the views, comments, notes, faves and invites :))
Like sheep they are destined for the grave, and death will feed on them. The upright will rule over them in the morning; their forms will decay in the grave, far from their princely mansions. Psalm 49:14
Some places around here have never really recovered from Hurricane Katrina. If you look around, you can still see the scars. I've lived here most of my life and I see them every day. Sometimes its subtle, like when you realize that an empty lot once held a home. Sometimes its not so subtle, like watching nature reclaim a utility shed.
In this shot, I wanted to show the distinct contrast between the shed in a state of disrepair and the beautiful greenery surrounding it. I find it fascinating how the process of healing sometimes leaves scar tissue and surrounds it with its own form of beauty.
This desicated and decaying leaf is about 1 inch long. It was stuck to my shoe and I thought that a macro shot of it would fit this week's theme.
Taken for 52Weeks of Pixs 2010.
Week 47. Theme: Decay.
Group winner. Thank you so much everyone.
“Chi combatte con i mostri deve guardarsi dal non diventare egli stesso un mostro. E se guarderai a lungo nell'abisso, l'abisso guarderà dentro di te."
Friedrich Nietzsche
Ghost town houses decay and eventually collapse when the roof goes and water starts to reclaim the building. This house in Susanville is fading fast.
A decayed Ash tree provides the frame for No 5542 at Didbrook on the Gloucestershire/Warwickshire Railway with the 10.00 train from Toddington to Cheltenham on 13th March 2016.
In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay.
And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.
— Ernst Fischer
Only the central portion of the house still stands atop a foundation that extends to the left and right. It has a basement. This is at Strevell, Idaho, a site just southeast of the junction of Idaho Highway 81 and a dirt road signed as "3600 S."
I was on my way to Utah, the northern boundary of which was 1.2 miles (1.9 km) down the road.
By the side of a drowning and decaying RAF Westland Whirlwind search and rescue helicopter on the fringe of Caernarfon airport (which used to be the RAF Llandwrog base) I had no idea I was stood close to where tens of thousands of tons of chemical weapons were once stored. Operation Sandcastle was a United Kingdom non-combat military operation conducted between 1955-1956. Its purpose was to dispose of chemical weapons by dumping them in the Irish Sea
The British possessed almost 71,000 air-dropped bombs of 250 kilograms in weight, each of which was filled with tabun. These had been seized from German ammunition dumps during the final months of World War II. A total of 250,000 tons of German chemical weapons had been discovered, the majority of which were destroyed because they comprised warfare agents which the allies already possessed in great abundance e.g. mustard gas. However, the stocks of tabun and sarin were considered more valuable because the allies did not possess nerve agent technology at that time. As a result, captured stocks of German nerve agents were divided between Britain and the United States after discussion, with the Americans taking the sarin. The British transferred their 14,000 tons of ordnance containg tabun in October 1945, via Hamburg and Newport, to temporary storage at the RAF strategic reserve ammunition store at Llanberis. Longer term facilities were prepared at RAF Llandwrog where the bombs were to be stored in stacks, out in the open, on the runways of the disused airfield. The intention was that any leaks of nerve agent would be carried out to sea by prevailing winds. The bombs were transported to Llandwrog by truck from August 1946 to July 1947.
In July 1947 it was discovered that the bombs were fuzed and a number of them were leaking nerve agent. The fact that the bombs had fuzes inserted meant that they were inherently unsafe: to reduce the risk of accidental detonation, standard practice is to avoid installing the fuze in any air-dropped bomb until shortly before it is loaded onto an aircraft to be used in combat. For similar reasons bomb fuzes are always stored separately, well away from bombs. Unfortunately, this was not the case with the 250 kilogram tabun bombs at RAF Landwrog. Not only had the bombs been left with fuzes inserted for a considerable amount of time (possibly years), but they were also left exposed to the elements creating a corrosion risk, together with the inevitable temperature fluctuations which resulted from changing weather. None of these factors were accepted practice regarding the safe, long-term storage of bomb fuzes or explosive ordnance in general.
At a rate of 500 bombs a week they were defuzed and individually coated in a waxy preservative to seal them. Seventy-two irreparable devices were neutralised on-site by being drained into individual pits filled with caustic soda crystals. Despite being given a preservative covering the bombs continued to suffer in the damp Welsh climate and in 1951 twenty-one 'Bellman' hangars were erected on the site to store the bombs. Finally in June 1954 it was decided to dispose of the entire stock because by then it was recognised that not only did the weapons have no military value but they had actually become a liability, which could only become worse as time passed.
Operation Sandcastle was divided into two sections, a sea voyage to Cairnryan and then a transfer to suitable hulks there for later sinking north-west of Ireland beyond the continental shelf. It was intended to process 16,000 bombs in the first attempt in mid-1955.
The work began with the construction of a road between Llandwrog and the nearby port of Fort Belan where six LCTs (landing crafts) were assembled. Loading trials in June indicated only 400 bombs could be loaded on each craft, less than hoped. It was then decided to remove the tail-fins from the bombs to reduce their length, and to pack them in new boxes. This work increased each LCT's load to 800 bombs and by mid-July all 16,000 devices had been safely carried to Cairnryan.
The SS Empire Claire was the first scuttling ship, her loading began in late June and by July 23 all 16,000 bombs were aboard, although an ill-considered loading plan had given her a noticeable list to starboard. The three scuttling charges of TNT were positioned to ensure her sinking would be steady and flat and the nine-man crew embarked. Departure was delayed by industrial action on the Firth of Clyde preventing the departure of the ocean-going tugboat Forester.
On 25 July 1955 the SS Empire Claire, SS Forester, and navy escorts Mull and Sir Walter Campbell left Cairnryan, the Empire Claire soon broke down and was taken under tow. They reached the scuttling point (56°30′00″N 12°00′00″W) in the early morning of 27 July but waited until 10.00 hrs for the arrival of an RAF photo-reconnaissance aircraft to observe the operation. The initial two scuttling charges blew and dramatically increased the vessel's starboard list, forcing the use of the emergency charge which opened her stern and caused a rapid sinking, bows up, to a depth of around 2,500 metres.
The later sinking went without any problems. MV Vogtland was scuttled on 30 May 1956 at the same site, taking 28,737 bombs with her and on 21 July 1956 the SS Kotka was sunk (at 56°31′00″N 12°05′00″W) with 26,000 bombs, 330 tons of arsenic and fifty cases of unidentified material