:mattLandia:

On Sunday, my friend and fellow shutterbug took to the asphalt and travelled to The Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham, Alabama. The Sloss Furnaces are contributed largely to the growth of Birmingham at the turn of the last century, as they were strategically located a crossing of railroads. It's stacks poured smoke over the 'bama horizon for many years.

Although now defunct, the Furnaces are open to the public. And by open, I mean OPEN. We climbed rickety catwalks and welded iron ladders to the highest reaches of the furnaces. We walked down dark, moss laden stairs into the deep cool of darkened machine rooms. I found the whole experience to be a sensory overload.

My eyes gorged themselves on the myriad patterns, textures, shapes, minute detail and behemoth size of what was once a living iron vomiting industrial wonder. At every turn, I was engaged by color, shadow, depth and detail.

The place smelled of metal, dirt, water and moss. As we moved through the caverns of mechanical solitude, I walked from one olfactory experience to the next.

When I closed my eyes and stood very still, there was an orchestra of alien noise to my ears. The distant dripping of water. The wind winding gently through girders, drums, and welded plates producing varying tones of murmer. The creaking of metal stairs and I cautiously stepped from one room to the next.

In all, I took around 200 photos. Of those, I'm only keeping 25 or so. In my excitement, I often rushed the shot or opted out of using my tripod when I should have taken the time to set it up. Click on the photo above (or here) to see the photos I'm keeping.

If you ever have the chance to visit... do.