Photographed by cobalt123

An image that I really like, one that is blurvision for sure, but has a range of golden, warm tones that attracts me. Even though this steel rope was shot without flash and only the available sodium lamps to light it, it still has some power for me. I suggest this one to be viewed in the original size. My laptop screen cuts off the sides and I see the central focus area with detail that would not have come out had I had a tripod and appropriate camera settings.

– License

Videographer Shanley Burk’s first experiment with the 5D Mark II’s video capabilities.  Filming was done in Tempe, Arizona and featured scenes from downtown Tempe and some of the Phoenix skyline and Sky Harbor Airport.

[Source: Jon Talton, Rogue Columnist blog] — Because I know the fragile self-esteem of Phoenicians is at stake, let me begin my observations about the state of the center city with the good stuff.  I smelled the orange blossoms — even stepping out into one of ugliest urban spaces anywhere, the pedestrian loading zone at Sky Harbor.  Many of the Midwestern transplants dislike the scent, which makes me dislike some of them even more.  But this small, fleeting thing reminds me of my often magical city that is gone forever.

Some of the projects begun under former Mayor Skip Rimsza and spearheaded by people like former Deputy City Manager Sheryl Sculley, retired Deputy City Manager Jack Tevlin and Ed Zuercher, now a deputy city manager, have turned out quite well.  As I wrote before, the starter light-rail line is great.  Now lots of places are clamoring for LRT; the trick will be to avoid using light rail when commuter rail would be more efficient.  A metro area the size of Phoenix needs both.  The Convention Center is such a startlingly attractive set of buildings that you wonder if the design was approved by mistake, given Phoenix’s ability to erect such ugliness.  The ASU downtown campus, Mayor Gordon’s signature accomplishment, is more of a reality, and thus will be more difficult for the Legislature to destroy.  The lovely oasis of Arizona Center remains, shady and cool.

Read on if you want to know “the rest of the story,” as the late Paul Harvey would say.

Much of the center city looks as if it has been cleaned up after repeated carpet bombing by the Allies in World War II.  There’s just nothing there.  It’s staggering to see the cleared land along Van Buren, Washington and Jefferson in what was to be Mayor Gordon’s “Opportunity Corridor.”  Other vacant lots proliferate around the Central Corridor.  City Hall seems to have learned nothing from its clear cutting of the neighborhoods between 7th Avenue and the state capitol during the 1980s.

This is problematic for many reasons.  First is what’s lost.  One would never know that Phoenix in 1950 was as densely populated as Seattle is today.  Buildings, many average but many with architectural value, crowded along every street.  For example, the district between 7th Avenue and the capitol had many Victorian houses and apartments from the territorial and 1920s era.  Van Buren and east McDowell, to give just two examples, sported commercial strips with the buildings right up to the sidewalk.  Downtown and the warehouse district were dense with interesting, durable, and in some cases priceless buildings.  Now all gone.  [Note: To read the full blog entry, click here.]

“Letters, text and punctuation – the marks of language – are visual. Culture with its barrage of advertisements, consumer icons and sound bites has influenced these fine artists. Incorporating graphic and text elements, they add another level of meaning to their art. The artists have combined words with images or objects to create puns, suggest stories or to provoke thoughts. Hand-written, painted, printed or recycled, text has become an aesthetic quality. Literary marks are used as visual texture, pattern, rhythm and context – in other words, the language of artists.”

Other Words is on display at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor international airport. Click here to see the photo gallery.

[Source: Jahna Berry, Arizona Republic] — City officials want to change the 37-year-old rules that cap building heights near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.  The plan, which will go before the planning commission on Wednesday and possibly to the City Council in June, would cap the size of future buildings at 700 feet in some areas and as low as 200 feet in others — depending on how close they are to the airport.

The proposed rules are unlikely to affect landowners anytime soon, city officials say, because the proposed limits are much higher than what people can build under city rules now.  The change is a safeguard against future proposals taller than what is envisioned right now, they say.  While some owners support the zoning plan others worry the change could bring more airport noise to their neighborhoods.  The proposed changes involve thousands of properties — the airport has sent nearly 60,000 notices to landowners. [Note: To read the full article, click here.]