Archive for 2013
troubled eyes
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A short one for today’s Maritime Sunday, Miriam Moran wresting the MSC Carole- a cargo ship- from the influence of tide and current and steering her toward a comfortable berth.
Also: Upcoming Tours!
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, May 4, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Parks and Petroleum- Sunday, May 12, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets on sale soon.
The Insalubrious Valley- Saturday, May 25, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets on sale soon.
Hidden Harbor: Newtown Creek tour with Mitch Waxman – Sunday, May 26,2013
Boat tour presented by the Working Harbor Committee,
Limited seating available, order advance tickets now. Group rates available.
cold flame
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Does a humble narrator ever leave Queens or Brooklyn? Not if one can help it, but of late, Manhattan’s demands have been omnipresent. Forth and back has one hurtled, to experience the litany of errors which rule the once proud center of the Megalopolis, all the time dreaming of the majesties of that harmonic convergence of ill fortune known as the Newtown Creek. Oh to gambol along the banks of sun drenched Maspeth Creek, or to stagger in awed silence along Dutch Kills, rather than to endure the incompetent malaise of Manhattan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It used to be fun, like some of my relatives, but the City has become a theme park of sorts. There are popular rides with long lines, but everywhere there is falseness and facade. Here in Queens, along this tributary of forgotten memory, is found a true place. A place of power and ambition, where hyper capitalism ran amok, creating a toxic wasteland amidst the concrete devastations which it called “progress.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Weird chemical and biological processes are always at work in the sediments of Dutch Kills, and often will plumes of some unknowable composition billow about in those waters found beneath the tension of the surface. It is easy to believe the wild accusations of area wags, regarding this place, when they refer to it as cursed and cancerous. What do they know, these sisyphean dwarves, sitting in their ivory towers of thwarted ambition and thinking only of darkness and revenge?
Also: Upcoming Tours!
Glittering Realms– Saturday, April 20, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, May 4, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Parks and Petroleum- Sunday, May 12, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets on sale soon.
The Insalubrious Valley- Saturday, May 25, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets on sale soon.
Hidden Harbor: Newtown Creek tour with Mitch Waxman – Sunday, May 26,2013
Boat tour presented by the Working Harbor Committee,
Limited seating available, order advance tickets now. Group rates available.
troubled jottings
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The scenes depicted in today’s shots actually didn’t actually look very much like these presented photo. In general, I screw around with every shot a little bit- push or pull the exposure and midpoints of dark and light, alter the color temperature to neutralize and compensate for sodium or fluorescent lights, drop an exposure gradient into a sky or on the water to compensate for glare. I’ll do the occasional tilt shift here and there, but largely strive for the ability to do it “in camera” more than anything else. Nothing major is altered, by “retoucher” standards, who would define such adjustments as merely “helping” the photo.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These photos, however, have had a whole bag of hammers thrown at them. One of the things I’m trying to eliminate from my mind these days is any fealty to the metaphor of film in creating a digital photograph. Even the term “photograph” is somewhat disingenuous as what these images actually “are” is a 23 megabyte computer file compiling the data captured by a sophisticated sensor. There is more information in the original file than is needed for reproduction, and the process of outputting the final image always involves a bit of photoshop editing work- deciding what to throw away, and that’s where the artsy fartsy stuff happens.
Losing this metaphor, the film one, leads one down the odd path of the so called “Uncanny Valley.” This term refers to a human perception bias which can instantaneously determine if something is artificially contrived, using CGI techniques to simulate a human face for instance. What I was “going for” in developing the shots as they are was a sort of old timey hand colored thing accomplished by a severely limited but quite saturated color range and an extremely high contrast regarding the black and white ratio. It’s a “formula” or “look” I’ve been asked to apply to other people’s files in my advertising life, by the way, usually for sports marketing stuff.
It beggars a certain question though- If it’s not a faithful rendition of the scene, a photograph by definition, what is it?
Also: Upcoming Tours!
Glittering Realms– Saturday, April 20, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, May 4, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Parks and Petroleum- Sunday, May 12, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets on sale soon.
The Insalubrious Valley- Saturday, May 25, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets on sale soon.
Hidden Harbor: Newtown Creek tour with Mitch Waxman – Sunday, May 26,2013
Boat tour presented by the Working Harbor Committee,
Limited seating available, order advance tickets now. Group rates available.
crawl circuitously
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just last week, as a dramatic downpour doused New York City, your humble narrator was at a Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee meeting at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Greenpoint debating the finer points of some signage which the DEP wants to hang on their fence line at the plant and for which they were seeking community input. When the clouds burst, however, and rain began to lash at the windows- one grabbed for the camera and headed to the door. If you’re at the largest sewer plant in New York City during a cloudburst, you take some pictures.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A quarter inch of rain, citywide, becomes a raging river of one billion gallons surging through the combined sewer system. Combined sewers, a term indicating that storm and sanitary sewers share the same pipes, are one of the City’s “original sins.” This billion gallon per quarter inch torrent has no where to go except for sewers, which when added to the regular sewage flow, “outfalls” into those waterways which distinguish and define our little archipelago.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The system of waste water treatment plants which are maintained by the DEP can handle some of this flow, using ingenious systems of weirs and diversion tunnels to slow down and store it for treatment, but a lot of the water hurtling through their network of sometimes centuries old pipe ends up going directly into the environment untreated. This is the problem which most afflicts my beloved Newtown Creek, but its also a big part of what’s wrong with the East and Hudson Rivers as well as all the smaller waterways found all around the harbor. This is also the reason why advisories are issued not to swim at area beaches following a storm.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Unfortunately, there’s little that can be practically done about it. If we who are taxed asked those who are elected to spend our money to remedy the situation, the astronomical bill incurred would bankrupt the Municipal, State, and quite possibly the Federal governments. It would involve opening up every street in New York City, remapping the gravity driven sewer system which has grown in spurts over the last 300 years, and begin building a brand new dual system. This would be catastrophically expensive, disruptive to every facet of the community, and take decades.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A simple thing each of us can do, based on an old adage- don’t waste a gallon of water on a pint of piss- is simply to not flush the toilet unnecessarily when its raining. By not adding your “constituents” to the flow during rain events, and I mean number one not two, you can help alleviate a significant amount of stress on the system and ensure that sewage does not wash out into the harbor with the storm water. This may seem “gross,” but here’s the question- can you tolerate leaving a bit of urine in the toilet for an hour or two until it stops raining or would you rather swim or boat in your own piss tomorrow?
Also: Upcoming Tours!
Glittering Realms– Saturday, April 20, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, May 4, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Parks and Petroleum- Sunday, May 12, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets on sale soon.
The Insalubrious Valley- Saturday, May 25, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets on sale soon.
Hidden Harbor: Newtown Creek tour with Mitch Waxman – Sunday, May 26,2013
Boat tour presented by the Working Harbor Committee,
Limited seating available, order advance tickets now. Group rates available.
The Newtown Pentacle 