A sense of place

Morning travelogue is a curiously compelling record of one man's commute to work as he ditches the Tube in order to walk through some of the lovelier and more interesting parts of downtown London. If only we all had such a short, pedestrian-friendly, and pleasant itinerary. The somewhat accelerated tracking and a peppy, danceable tune help, too.
Via Weekend Stubble.






Fed by Birds has just shared a few photographs paired with ambient soundscapes from a recent trip Cornwall, in Cornish Sounds. The captured ambience of waves and seabirds and breezy forests and tolling churchbells is wonderfully tranquil.





I was reminded of Their Circular Life: An Exploration About Human Behavior, an interesting little flash presentation that allows you to cycle through twenty-four hours of sounds and images captured from stationary observation posts in a variety of urban locations. Go fast and watch the day whizz by your eyes, or slow down to listen to the nuances of the place.









At La grange numérique, the panoramic photography site of Denis Gliksman, you can find a number of beautiful 360° scenes, some with sound and animation, like this set of "Spriteoramas" of rocks and lapping waves on the coast of Brittany.

The aesthetics of decay

Abandoned Places is a group Livejournal with a little bit of everything. A lot of nice amateur work from urban explorers, and some professional work by serious photographers, too.




Decayed Machinery, another group Livejournal. Lots of rusty cars, and some industrial sites.




Lapsed Modernist is the photoblog of an urban explorer. Not only is the work excellent, but she has access to some really nice locations.




The Unconscious Art of Demolition, a Flickr pool. A superb collection of mostly exquisitely textured and weathered walls.





Medianeras, another Flickr pool devoted to the remnants of demolished medianeras, dividing walls.




More at El arte de las medianeras.




50 Grams of Urban Loneliness, a Flickr photoset. These places are not really abandoned, but they are lonely. And beautifully photographed.





The Ghost Signs Pool. The past fading before your eyes. (I'm quite fond of the first one, by the way: "Blue Ribbon Tea".)





Opacity is the urban ruins photography of Motts. Very shiny and professional, great compositions, and many wonderful locations. Hard to choose samples -- I just about closed my eyes and clicked. And clicked and clicked.
Via Dream Tree.






The stunning photography of Shinichiro Kobayashi. Many excellent photos of gloriously decaying places from all over Japan.
Via the nonist.




I'd just like to add that many of these photos reminded me of places I've been in games -- I'm sure I've seen this room somewhere in Nova Prospekt in Half-Life 2, and this place certainly is from some corner or other of Riven's Boiler Island.




Undercity.org is the work of Steve Duncan, "a guerilla historian in Gotham". There's actually not that much history about the photos (stories and articles are in a separate section), but his beautiful shots of moody subterranean places, like old mausoleums and miles of subway tunnels, are testament enough.
Via the nonist.





Photographer David Maisel, has, among other records of decay and ruin (such as his "black maps", aerial photos of environmentally impacted landscapes, and the "library of dust" containing the cremated remains of asylum inmates), an excellent series of photos of the crumbling asylum itself.
Via Pruned.




Modern Ruins, photographic essays by Shaun O'Boyle. Numerous photo essays, each exploring a specific location running the gamut from hospitals and asylums to small dying towns to industrial sites.





Modern Ruins, the photography of Phillip Buehler. Many industrial and military subjects, like factories and airplane graveyards. His work includes a selection of panoramas presented in QTVR. He also has a small collection of Street Fossils.
Via the nonist.





Also, the nonist with some links on the subject of decay: notable among them are two articles by Brian Dillon, "Down in the Dump", in Frieze, and "Fragments from a History of Ruin" in Cabinet.

New Scientist invites us to "Imagine Earth without people": Left once more to its own devices, Nature would begin to reclaim the planet, as fields and pastures reverted to prairies and forest, the air and water cleansed themselves of pollutants, and roads and cities crumbled back to dust. (You can also read the article at Archinect, where the page design is more soothing.)
I'm not really a fan of this sort of anti-anthropocentric naturist creed, but it is poetic, at least.
Via Side Effects, a blog about decay.

This book sounds intriguing; this book, which I spotted and flipped through in the MoMA bookstore, is a beauty.