Primitive peoples tend to attribute miraculous god-like powers to technology or machinery that is foreign to them. So perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised to find a surreal looking face tucked back in the complicated machinery at Sloss Furnaces.

The confusing array of oddly arranged levers, knobs, wheels, etc. on this machinery had me thinking of Rube Goldberg, although I'm sure it all makes perfect sense.

Looking out at the heavy rain from the dark but dry interior of a building. If there's anything more pleasing about rainstorms in the south besides the cooling relief they give (at least for a little while)from the oppressive summer heat, it's got to be the snug feeling of being in a dry location watching and listening to the rain pour down outside.

I thought the light of the heavily overcast sky made for dim shooting outside at Sloss Furnaces, but when viewed coming through the windows into to the dark interior of the factory building I was able to walk through, it appeared to shine quite brightly.

Some of the many valves that controlled the iron production at Sloss Furnaces. It was obviously a process that took a lot of fine tuning.

This is one of the shots that required juggling a camera and an umbrella at the same time, but it was worth it as the steady rain gave the rusty metal work an almost surreal highly polished look.

I'm sure the complex maze of tubes and pipes, valves and levers, bins and stacks that permeates Sloss Furnaces made perfect sense to the people who worked there. But it meant very little to me, either on a macro or a broad scale. From an artistic standpoint, this is a good thing. A knowledgeable person looking at a photo such as this one likely sees only the practical function these pipes represent, not the beauty in the form itself.  On the other hand, my uninformed mind is able to focus on the form not the function and appreciate the interesting abstract composition.

Since it was raining much of the time I was at the Sloss Furnaces, I took advantage of whatever cover there was for photographing. This was taken looking out from under a large canopy that I imagine at one time sheltered raw or finished material at the furnaces. Now it is the location of the stage for the musical events that occur there regularly. Even without any actual performers present, it was quite pleasant for listening to music--in this case that of the rain falling on the metal roof.

I'm on my way to an art show in Omaha but starting today will be posting a series of photos from the Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham. Sloss Furnaces produced iron for nearly 90 years, and was a major contributor to the rise of the city of Birmingham, helping it gain the nickname "The Pittsburgh of the South." Steel production ended at Sloss in 1971 and it is now a National Historic Landmark serving as a tourist attraction, a concert venue, and location for metal arts workshops. 

 

I first photographed at the Sloss Furnaces ten years ago when my niece got married. I was back in Birmingham this year for her brother's wedding, so was able to photograph it again. I was wondering how I might see the place differently after ten years and if I would be able to get any images that were substantially different from the ones I took a decade ago. Getting some different views of the place was aided by the fact that it was pouring down rain most of the time I was there, so all the metal took on a dark, glossy sheen. Trying to photograph in the pouring rain was a challenge--holding an umbrella in one hand and the camera in the other and trying to keep it stable enough to use slow shutter speeds in the low light conditions. (Yes I know, I should have been using a tripod, but where's the challenge in that?)

There has been no shortage of stormy weather on my recent travels. A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to NPR while driving across Nebraska on my way to Kansas City when a severe storm warning was issued for several western counties. I don't know my Nebraska counties but a quick check of the map confirmed what the sky was suggesting--that the path of the storm in question and the highway I was driving on converged some miles ahead. I felt a bit like one of those storm chasers on TV. But I'll never make prime-time as the storm had moved on by the time I got there.

A dark evening sky over Mt. Laramie. The mountain (as well as the river, and the city) were named after a French-Canadian trapper by the name of Jacques La Ramée--more often spelled La Ramie and sometimes even as La Remy. There is much to do these days about so many people speaking a language other than English in this country and whether or not they should be compelled to learn English as soon as possible. Regardless of what they should or should not be required to do, they might as well learn it because if they don't we're likely to just twist their language into a form that looks and sounds like English anyway. No wonder the French hate us.

The view through my windshield on a soggy, wet day on a lonely road in Wyoming. I took this on my way to Kansas City a couple of weeks ago, but there have been plenty of opportunities for shots like this in this part of the country lately. In fact, it look much like this outside this morning. 

 

On an unrelated subject, after five years of using 1Site software to produce my web site, I finally spent enough time with their tech support people to actually get the spell checker working. And looking back over a couple months of previous posts, it is something that was sorely needed--there were lots of corrections to be made. I thought I was pretty good at proof-reading (and spelling), but this proved me wrong! Anyway, you editor types out there (Hi Janette) should see a bit less to grit your teeth at now.

The arrangement of these birds on the power lines is suggestive of a very fast paced tune. (An old photo from 2004, but this seems a good day for it.)

There has been a pair of Golden Eagles flying around our house recently. They're probably nesting somewhere in the area. Several times I've heard and then seen a raven or two harassing the eagles as they soar overhead. The ravens squawk and dive at the eagles, who usually just ignore them. But occasionally the ravens get a little bolder and actually try and "count coup" on the eagles, which requires some sort of acknowledgment on the part of the larger bird. The ravens are lucky that the eagles seem to be pretty good natured about the whole ritual and don't usually make much of an effort to fight back. 

 

Yesterday on the way into town, we saw one of the eagles feeding on something just off the edge of our road. The eagle flew off to a near-by tree as we drove up so we stopped to see what it was eating. It was a new-born mule deer fawn. I was told by a neighbor (who at least talks like he's an expert on the subject) that the fawn likely died the night before due to the cold, wet weather. He said that, lying on the wet ground, a new-born fawn has a difficult time maintaining its body heat and can die of hypothermia. Whether this particular fawn died of hypothermia or was actually killed by the eagle, the incident was a reminder that nature can be cruel as well as cute.

I suppose it's the ultimate in notoriety to have your image engraved on a man-hole cover (as if commanding the nickel wasn't enough). The implied disrespect in having people continually driving over your face is offset by the fact that it also keeps it polished to a nice glow.

Not every building in downtown Birmingham is arranged on a regular grid. These somewhat randomly sized and placed windows makes me wonder what the building is like on the inside. I imagine the five staggered down the center of the photo are windows on stair landings.

Happy Flag Day courtesy of the farmer's coop in Chappell, a small town of about 1,000 people in the Nebraska panhandle. Besides the giant flag on the grain elevator, Chappell's main claim to fame seems to be that it is the home town of Richard Cabela, founder of the Cabela's sporting goods empire. Interesting that he chose to build the world headquarters 30 miles down the road in SIdney rather than in Chappell. Until Cabela's went up in Sidney, it was as sleepy as Chappell is. Now Sidney is booming while Chappell is, well, still sleepy.

A different kind of repetitive grid. This pattern lined the archway of an entrance to a building. I'm not sure what kind of bird it was meant to be but I'm calling it a crow so I can add it to my Opus Corvus collection.

With all the broken out windows this building looked abandoned. Yet there were lights on inside, on the first floor anyway. Obviously not a business that is worried about keeping things particularly dry (it was raining quite hard when I took this photo.)

Another parking garage in downtown Birmingham. The parking garages were as empty as the surrounding buildings. Some cities build parking garages as part of a revival effort to entice more people downtown. But I got the impression that the garages in Birmingham were built to service what was already a thriving downtown area and have suffered the same abandonment as the rest of downtown over the years. At least if a revitalization effort takes hold, they've already got the parking spaces to serve it.

This one is the side of a parking garage.

This is a close-up of the side of the Leer Building that was the subject of the POTD photo from May 25. I took this one on a different day, when it wasn't storming. I like how the scale of the photo is difficult to determine until you look at it close enough to notice the panes in the windows. And just about in the middle of the image are four panes glowing white with light coming through the building from the other side, giving the repetitive pattern of the image a focal point.

I think the full name on this building is The New City Baptist Church. It's a good lead-in image for a set of images of the repetitive patterns (mostly grids) formed on the side of big city buildings that I've been slowly accumulating. I took a number of them in Birmingham and will post them over the next few days. The pattern in this one has me thinking about Mondrian paintings, without the colors of course.

And watch those stairs to the second and third levels.

The vines are artificial, but the Mourning Dove is real.

A more modern take on a shoe repair business, certainly an attention getter.

By the looks of the sign, this shoe repair business in downtown Birmingham has been open a long time.

A scene from one of the blocks in downtown Birmingham struggling to maintain some relevance. Or maybe it has already lost the battle as the dollar store this woman just came out of appeared to be the only thing open on the block.

A little dappled sunlight on a classic old bank building in downtown Birmingham. Given what's been happening the last couple of years, it seems almost oxymoronic to see the word safe associated with a bank.

A monument to Eddie Kendrick (aka Eddie Kendricks). Born in Union Springs, Alabama, he grew up in Birmingham. He is of course, most famous for his falsetto voice parts as a member of The Temptations. Watch them on YouTube here.