Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Abandoned Chemical Company

Funny what you can find laying around in the North Atlanta suburbs! Enough pool chlorine for the entire state of Nevada, for instance...

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

1923 Elementary School

West side ATL, the cornerstone for this school was laid in 1923. According to reports I've read the school was last occupied in 1970, but there are records boxes in the basement dating to 1994. (It's possible, even likely, that the school board was just using the basement for storage.)

This is the most deteriorated interior of a building I have ever seen. I wish I had brought a video camera to capture the sounds and movement of the water, which was raining in everywhere throughout the building. Water was dripping from ceilings and pouring down walls. The building was full of the sound of echoing water off concrete walls, like a concrete rainforest.

A "resident" of the building graciously gave us a tour and told stories of his life there, including his encounters with demons, the ghost of a small boy who returns at night, and occasionally the local sheriff.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Abandoned Winery

I ran across this while finding an alternate route home from work one day. It appears to be an old winery. TK and I returned and photographed the outside and the facilities room. The rest of it is locked up, and it appears someone is in the process of moving stuff out of it.

According to the weather reports a tornado came through the area while we were photographing. We ended up seeking shelter in that fairly questionable aluminum structure. For some reason, the fantastically awful movie "Twister" came to mind.

Yeah. We do urbex during tornadoes. We're hard core like that. Word. :)

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Auntie Em! Auntie Em! It's a twister!

Last night a tornado ripped through downtown Atlanta. I was visiting an old friend in Duluth, GA when it happened.

Once I heard about the damage, I headed back into town to see if my house was still standing. Thankfully, my block was spared. But neighborhoods on each side of me took some pretty moderate damage.

At daybreak the news helicopters started hovering over my roof and all my relatives started calling me when they saw my neighborhood on Fox News or CNN. So, I figured I might as well get up and walk around the area and take some pictures.

It is sad to see the damage to the historic neighborhood. The cotton mill lofts and the mill houses all took some damage. Much of it is minor, but some houses are completely destroyed by the oak trees that were ripped up by the twister.

The damage is extremely localized, which speaks to it being a tornado. My block suffered no damage at all.  Even the lightweight wicker furniture on my front porch is still in place, and it blows around during regular storms all the time. Yet on each side of me in the neighboring Cabbagetown and Old Forth Ward districts there is evidence of the tornado.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Visiting Seal & Stamp with friends.

Revisiting the site with some friends as it was getting dark, I decided to linger and shoot some exposures as they explored.

The Return of N2720L

Well, after a few months of downtime for service I finally got my plane back. Yaaaaay!

Lima had to have three cylinders replaced due to cracks. Two had really low compressions and one had an exhaust leak. Since they were also cracked they had to be replaced instead of overhauled. So that set me back a bit. Anyhow, she's running better than ever now and I decided to take the "run-in" opportunity to take a few pictures.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Glidden, revisited, again...

I know what you're thinking. "Another Glidden photo shoot? Don't you get tired of that place?"

In a word, yes. It's played out. But I was meeting some new people and visiting it with another explorer who hadn't been there yet. And, while we were there we ran into a guy doing a porn-fetish shoot. I'm going to withhold comments on that, but if you really want to see his work it's up on flickr. Maybe I'll post a link later.

So anyhow, I took some new photos since I was wandering around anyhow. No pr0n though, sorry. ;)


Flickr link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/phreakmonkey/sets/72157655063885001