Industrial landscapes - 4

From the archives....





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Cem,
I really like this image.
the juxtaposition of the old dirty energy with new clean (renewable and sustainable) energy is quite poignant.

Might just like to see a hint of movement in turbines to drive home the message however.

First, Cem,

Congratulations on a well observed and contained scene and framing. The composition can withstand no cropping nor requires any additions. It's very efficient and handsome. But there's more than morsels for the visual cortex. The image presented has social import.

There form of the potentially polluting power plant, is like an innocent cloud, but every so often, radioactive gases will be bled off. So we have a seemingly "natural cloud" which can be potentially hazardous, and the clean wind turbines themselves looking like industrial megaliths.

Cem_Usakligil said:

From the archives.....

Click to expand...

This, as are your other photographs shows the apposition of the better part of life and the obvious industrial polluters. It's a different "shock" effect in each picture you've shown, but this is especially interesting.

The paradox here, Cem, is that to get the wind turbines, to have copper wire smelted and drawn to wires and wound into coils in generators of electricity, requires a giant industrial infrastructure. One needs the most advanced factories as well as abundant sources of energy. So there's likely a significant carbon footprint to "clean energy" like this.

I am glad to have you put before us, not only pictures that can stand as photographs worthy of collection, but also works that leverage on our education and intelligence and not just pluck our heart strings! These pictures, (no doubt, as a series), could one day serve as documentation as to how we merely "brushed against" confronting damage to our own habitat.

Asher

Hi, Andy,

Andy brown said:

Cem,
I really like this image.
the juxtaposition of the old dirty energy with new clean (renewable and sustainable) energy is quite poignant.

Click to expand...

My guess is that the white plume is not smoke but rather water vapor from the cooling tower of a nuclear power plant.

Best regards,

Doug

I'm sure you're right Doug. Those style of chimneys do look just like the ones used for electricity generation in Southern Australia by burning brown coal.
Australia has abundant wind and solar availability, we're just very slow to change from burning **** loads of brown coal (big bucks and political will playing out as per usual).

Doug Kerr said:

...My guess is that the white plume is not smoke but rather water vapor from the cooling tower of a nuclear power plant.

Click to expand...

Yes indeed. This is the Doel nuclear power plant in Belgium. It is just 18km away from our house as the bird flies. The distance between the windmills and the towers is about 12km. BTW, if the name "Doel" rings any bells, it must be because it is the deserted village from my Doel series.

Andy brown said:

...Might just like to see a hint of movement in turbines to drive home the message however.

Click to expand...

Perhaps it would make the photo more interesting visually Andy. But what I like about this is that they are all dead in the water and the power plant happily puffs away. Yet more irony.

Hi Asher,

Asher Kelman said:

First, Cem,

Congratulations on a well observed and contained scene and framing. The composition can withstand no cropping nor requires any additions. It's very efficient and handsome. But there's more than morsels for the visual cortex. The image presented has social import.

There form of the potentially polluting power plant, is like an innocent cloud, but every so often, radioactive gases will be bled off. So we have a seemingly "natural cloud" which can be potentially hazardous, and the clean wind turbines themselves looking like industrial megaliths.

This, as are your other photographs shows the apposition of the better part of life and the obvious industrial polluters. It's a different "shock" effect in each picture you've shown, but this is especially interesting.

The paradox here, Cem, is that to get the wind turbines, to have copper wire smelted and drawn to wires and wound into coils in generators of electricity, requires a giant industrial infrastructure. One needs the most advanced factories as well as abundant sources of energy. So there's likely a significant carbon footprint to "clean energy" like this.

I am glad to have you put before us, not only pictures that can stand as photographs worthy of collection, but also works that leverage on our education and intelligence and not just pluck our heart strings! These pictures, (no doubt, as a series), could one day serve as documentation as to how we merely "brushed against" confronting damage to our own habitat.

Asher

Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for your astute comments, appreciated.

Hi Cem,
what a subtle told story ... great.

Cem_Usakligil said:

Perhaps it would make the photo more interesting visually Andy. But what I like about this is that they are all dead in the water and the power plant happily puffs away. Yet more irony.

Click to expand...

Cem,

This surprised me! I didn't pick up on the stationary blades. I am so used to high speed photographs and some modern turbines have very slowly rotating vanes, so I just figured, "He could have used a low shutter speed, but he's in to clean sharp photographs!"

I do know that about 30 years ago, when there was a boom in start up ventures to produce wind turbine energy across the U.S. landscape, a lot of companies went bust, as the main driving force was the huge tax benefit and not clean electricity. There are still abandoned arrays of these false starts scattered over the landscape.

Asher

Hi Cem,
I knew I had this image kicking around somewhere.
The interesting bit for me relates to recent comments by our (esteemed{cough!}, Prime minister - Tony Abbott). He is a well known climate change sceptic and has taken Australia's responses to climate change action back a good couple of decades (don't get me started on where he's taken us on social issues).

He said not a week ago that he "has been up close to wind turbines and they are visually offensive, noisy and they have negative health aspects as well ".

Thinking people found this quite absurd, like something George dubya might have trotted out in his finest hours.
He might have well have said " cigarettes are good, apples, well they're just dangerous", it would have been more accurate.

Anyway, you get my drift, I don't think they are so ugly.

And this one




And this cos I think you like the bigness of industry. They're bloody huge

Actually, Andy,

These windmills have a wonderful sculptural effect and does not harm anything, save a few birds which we need to protect somehow with some UV reflecting paint to scare them off.

...and perhaps he's catholic and will be persuaded by the Pope's smart statement on the reality of Global Warming and how it threatens so many people, especially in consideration that we're being fast split into rare middle class, a section that's well off, a slither of vulgar rich and a majority of folk struggling or dirt poor. It's the later groups most susceptible to climate devastations on farms and food prices.

The rich cities have purified water, gated communities and full refrigerators of choice food and are so separated from the rest of society that many don't feel threatened or disrupted on any sense of doom for their children. No wonder Mari Antoinette declared, as the solution to the cries that the people had no bread, "Let them eat cake!".

Asher

Cem_Usakligil said:

From the archives....

Industrial landscapes - 4 (f52803) by Cem Usakligil, on Flickr
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Click to expand...

I dunno why this image doesn't show here, but looking at it on Flickr is a great experience
Cem, another fabulous image!