Clyde Butcher at TEDxSarasota

Alas, Babylon at SPESE 2012 "The End of the World"

It's been a long time

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This is the Sarasota National Golf Course. Unlike Augusta National, anyone can wander onto the premises unhindered, including feral hogs. 

This was the first time I felt fully justified carrying a hand gun while outside of the truck cab.

 

Most houses had at least some of their storm shutters in place, meaning that they are unoccupied or abandoned.

Even though it's a functioning golf course and a barely functioning housing development, the entrance has gone to seed.

Tornadoes, digital imaging, and beheaded pines

One the greatest things about working digitally is the immediacy, even when working in a large format. I took these pictures about 8 hours ago. This was the first chance I had to drive around the Harrison TN area that was hit on April 27th by tornado(es). I still can't process the emotion I felt but I sure as hell can process the images.

Sometimes I have to force myself to stop and make an image, and when I don't give in, it gnaws at me like guilt. I don't want to make these images, I had to make these images.

I made these two, and I was done. I may go back tomorrow, I may not.

the first volume of Alas, Babylon

After much haranguing, I have assembled the first volume of Alas, Babylon, chronicling the first year of the project. It's available as an EPUB file, which should be viewable on just about any book reading device. 
 
Download the EPUB file here.

or

Download the PDF version here.

As an aside, why are there no good EPUB publishing programs?

Parrish, Florida

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Driving through Parrish really brought me back to the seeds of this project. Parrish is a typical inland Florida town; populated by maybe a couple thousand people, surrounded by farmland, and close enough to a big city that the farmland is slowly being suburbanized. I stumbled upon this development, Cross Creek. Six years ago, at the back side of the housing boom, some developer decided to built a multi-section development. They built playgrounds, parks, a community pool, a dog run and five model homes, and of course, all the infrastructure needed when these home where built. 

Six years hence, there's no sign of any additional building. We have encroachment back into the roads and parks. There where people out walking the streets on their daily walk, but they didn't live there. Plenty of people came to use the dog run, but none of them lived there either. No kids played in the playgrounds; no one visited the community pool. Even though there's no houses, the Peace River Electrical Coop still has to maintain the equipment; workers where out inspecting the entire development while I was there.

I spent the better part of a day exploring this space. There's so much I wish could be done, so much that could have been done, without creating what it now a blight on the map.

Cypress Creek

Outlet mall builder sold on Tampa

Botanica Lakes, Fort Myers, Florda

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Botanica Lakes is another development slowly being built out. I had to do a little trespassing to get into the development, but once in I found plenty of creep into the natural world.

This is how my day ended, and pretty much sums it up. Two hours later and $200 lighter I was on the road again. I've expanded my road kit to include a short shovel, and plenty of long planks so I can dig myself out.

"A massive controversy emerged after a University of Iowa professor published a damning portrait of the state in The Atlantic. Here's an update and a look to how young Iowans are shaping the conversation using film and new media."

http://theruralsite.blogspot.com/2012/01/whats-matter-with-iowa-part-1.html

Naples, FL

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When I first saw the image above, I felt like I struck gold. I hadn't been down as far south as Naples, and knowing how the rest of southwest Florida was faring, I expected more of the same.

What I found was a thriving subdivision under construction. I stopped and talked to one of the contractors, and he said that the above Google map must have been around a year old, and they've been building and selling for about a year. These homes, however, are all intended to be in gated and walled communities, and cost around half a million.

Naples is full of gated and walled communities. I had seven sites marked on the map for the day, and only got into two. Needless to say, I was disappointed.

I love that the builders are hiding the dirt mound used to grade the earth behind a privacy fence.





Again, a row of tree appears. This time, they're just awaiting their final planting.

The sign says:

PRESERVE

AREA

THIS AREA

SHALL NOT BE

DISTURBED

I could only laugh at the irony in this scene. Perfect grass, butted up against the rough nature of Florida. A sign, designated where the wild begins and civilization ends. There where countless versions of this sign all ringing this designated wild area.

I wish there was a sign like this at the state line.

Witness: Defining Conservation Photography Feature

on the ground

This is, or was, a dusky pygmy rattlesnake. I found him (or her) dead in the road, but he (or she) wasn't squashed, so I'm not sure what did him (or her) in. Still, we know life goes on long after the asphalt laying machine leaves.

South Gulf Cove, Port Charlotte, FL

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Again, I was amazed that I spend an entire day in an area about 2 square miles. Even though on the map there's seemingly nothing, when you're in the space, it's a place full of life, just one dissected by asphalt. 
Even though the name sounds like it promises home on the Gulf of Mexico, and many of the homes are on manmade canals and have docks, getting to the actual Gulf is a long journey. even though you're only a couple of thousand feet (as the crow flies) from Charlotte Harbor and the rest of the Gulf. 
If you follow the map, you'll find a tiny set of locks north of the development, and that's the only way to access the Gulf from your home. It's a strange thing to look at aerially, seeing this heavy handed man made design on a peninsula with so much perserved space. Of course, I can say the same thing about the neighboring Rotonda development.

I still love finding these little places like the above, where there's a little bit of human reclamation going on. That little white speck in the upper middle left was a boat, just sort of floating along the opposite shore.

The biggest landmark is a radio tower, visible in the upper right. 

Again, I'm struck by the infrastructure that exists for a place that will never be what it was intended to be.

the sign advises the general public that this lot is under 24 hour video surveillance.

I have a odd attractive to turkey buzzards. Whenever I see them, I will stop and try to photograph them, but the movement of me setting up a camera and sneaking close to them usually spooks them and they fly away. I have no idea what they where doing on top of this little mound, other than playing their version of king of the hill. Still, actually getting setup to photograph without scaring off a naturally timid bird is an accomplishment to me.

in the air

So while out, I spy this plane, probably out of Miami, headed northwest, and dragging long contrails. I stopped what I was doing and watched it traverse the sky, all the while leaving a trail. 

I've explored with the interaction of planes and the sky before. I guess there's still some attraction to that combination. It seems so pure, so clean, such a elegant act even though it seems like a violation of the sky.

North Port, Florida Part II

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I had no intention of being so close to my last site, but the luck of the draw found me in the same general locale as my previous entry. I spent several hours in an area about 2 square miles. It becomes amazing sometimes how the homogeny of these sites is broken down, sometimes by nature, sometimes by the further intrusion of man recreating these spaces into something, this time a fairly large dirtbike / 4-wheeler track.

Looking through these mounds that had become ramps, there's an abundance of sea shells, most of them tiny, but a few clam shells as big as my hand, if not bigger. Where these dredged up from the sea floor to be used as fill dirt? Is this the remnants of Florida's underwater past? Thoughts like these vex me. Where is the answer?

I've found a theme that's started to bubble up subconsciously.

North Port, Florida Part I

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There's this road that I-75 passes over between North Port and Port Charlotte. I've probably driven over this road a few dozen times, and if this was rural Georgia or South Carolina or Tennessee, I would assume, more than likely, that the road was a county road, leading off to some farm or pasture down the road.

Since this is Florida, that's not the case. The road is actually Yorkshire Street, a main thoroughfare for a development whose name has been seemingly lost, but whose roads remain.

There's a series of bridges in the area, crossing what are labelled as waterways. 20+ years of plant growth, however, have rendered them useless for navigation in all but a shallow draft canoe. This is the bridge crossing the Bethlehem Waterway.

A view of the Bethlehem Waterway. There where several alligators calling, although I never saw them.

A view of the Cocoplum Waterway.

Again, the usual dumping you find in these unintended rural area.

Cruising these streets, I found an odd thing: a grouping of pine trees, planted more or less in a row and more or less evenly spaced. This presents a mystery: Who planted these trees, and why?