And The Beat Goes On

I took the last few days off blogging and photographing because I had no desire, no spirit to do so. I just didn't care, and I had other tasks to do. This morning some of the dark funk lifted and I stopped off by the Burger Kind next to the construction site and shot another 30 or so exposures with the E-3 and the ZD 12-60mm.

As you can see below, they just about scrapped all the land clear, down below the original soil level, and filled it back up again with a different soil mixture in preparation for construction. I went back into my archives and I've pulled in photographs going back to 2009 when they first stated to knock all the trees down. It's been an on-going slow-motion environmental tragedy for the last three years.

Taken February 2012 - The topsoil and remaining vegetation are being stripped away

Taken February 2012

Taken March 2010 - More medium to heavy timber is knocked down

Taken June 2009 - The land is starting to be cleared away

Taken June 2009 - What it all looked like before it was cleared away

Taken June 2009

The lot across the street on the corner of University and Quadrangle will eventually have a Racetrack gas station built on it. The top soil piled on top is to compress the wetlands enough so that they can go back in and bury fuel tanks as well as cover just about the entire area with asphalt and concrete.

Riding into work I heard on NPR how Florida's unemployment rate is 9%, Orlando's 8.4%, while nationally it's about the same as Orlando's. In looking back over the archives I've noted how I've been photographing more construction since about this time last year, from the work on the 408 to all sorts of projects scattered around the area. I guess that's a good sign. Some of the projects are on existing property, but the majority is clearing out new lands.

And we call this progress and prosperity.

Technical

All photos except the second photo taken February 2012 and the one taken March 2010 were taken with the E-3 and the 12-60mm. The other two used the E-P2, the first with the M.Z 45mm and the second with the 9-18mm and adapter. Technically, from June 2009 to today, the photos show increasingly better technique. Which I guess is good, as it seems to show that I'm slowly improving and learning something. But then, perhaps not. The worst of the lot is the one using the E-P2 and the 9-18mm. It's blurry, either due to improper focus or something else, I'm not sure what. What saves it is that it's documenting something important and the lens was set to f/8, which gave reasonable sharpness from front to back. But I know that combination can produce deadly sharp results, and this photo ain't got it.