Archive for June 2020
hadn’t reckoned
Thunderation, its Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One wore sunglasses. This is an increasingly rare statement for one such as myself, who has been scuttling about in the dark night for so long. Friday last, a humble narrator woke up in one of his dark moods, soon realizing that it was time to eschew the company of the humans and seek the succor of the Newtown Creek. Camera batteries were charged up, lenses polished, and my shoe laces were tied tightly. HQ was vacated, a course decided, and approximately 17,000 steps and six hours later one returned to Astoria with his desire to “do something” sated.
Before you might ask, the face mask is worn while in a center of habitation, such as Astoria or Sunnyside. Once I’ve passed through and into the deserted industrial zones of Newtown Creek, the obvious solitude encountered allows one to put the thing away and store it in a pocket. This is not offered as any sort of guidance or advice, incidentally, it’s what I’m doing. You do you, snowflake.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One still refuses to climb onboard a Subway, but I did hire a ride from a ride share taxi last week. The driver had created a plastic bubble for himself, and I insisted on opening all the windows in my compartment, while wearing a mask. The latest medical malady which I’m enjoying includes a bit of arthritic pain in my left ankle and foot – which is the same extremity that hosted that shattered big toe at the end of last year – and after several miles of loping about the ankle pain really began to speak up and demand attention. Discretion and valor calculations were made and I decided to slice off two miles of getting back home by dropping a $10 bill for the ride.
I am possessed with a notoriously high level of tolerance for pain, incidentally, something which various Doctors have commented on over the years when they were presented with whatever bleeding stump I’ve brought them to fix. I’m fairly sure that what I’m experiencing in the ankle would cripple most, but a humble narrator is made of sterner stuff. About once a day I like to let my mental discipline slip and allow all of the various aches and pains a voice. That’s when I drop to the floor and whimper like a wounded seal. My dog thinks it’s a game, and she lies next to me and also howls.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One was racing the descent of the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself as it slid behind New Jersey, in the name of getting to a certain spot along the Brooklyn shoreline of Newtown Creek for a dusk picture. Actually, for a series of dusk pictures. Pictured above, that’s the Metro Oil campus in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section with the Empire State Building peeking out behind it.
Noteworthy for a relative lack of atmospheric humidity, last Friday the gamey ankle wasn’t offering me any trouble. One strode the earth with vast and rapid movements, carrying his putrescent carcass mile after mile across the concretized devastations.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, June 15th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates as we move into April and beyond, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
night watch
Borden Avenue Bridge, #LIC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is in the process of a quarterly exercise, visiting all of the corners of the Newtown Creek watershed. I’ve been doing this for awhile now, quarterly, and certain areas in the Borough of Queens which host the Newtown Creek’s tributaries have been positively haunted by my nocturnal inspections during the recent tribulations we have all been enjoying. Oft repeated, Dutch Kills is a tributary of the nefarious Newtown Creek which branches off of the main trunk of that waterway some .7 of a mile from the East River and proceeds roughly 3/4 of a mile into the Long Island City section of Queens. The Borden Avenue Bridge is one of several retractile spans across Dutch Kills, retractile meaning that the roadway retreats for maritime access, and was built in 1908. It is owned and operated by the NYC Department of Transportation.
It’s my second favorite Newtown Creek Bridge, after the Grand Street Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One often comes here and scans the shorelines with a powerful flashlight. The eye shine of feral cats reflects back, but that’s not what one searches the rocky shores for. One is hesitant to describe the rumor which led to the activation of that pocket flashlight. You would think me credulous, or superstitious at best.
Suffice to say that some stories need to develop, and that still water may indeed run deep. I did take advantage of the fact that the local strip club remains closed, as the shot above was captured on their entryway steps.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Post facto gathering these shots of Dutch Kills, one has since been entertaining himself with walks heading both eastwards and southwards into Blissville and Greenpoint, with the product of said effort is being prepared for your consumption later this week.
As a note, today is the 130th 116th anniversary of the General Slocum disaster in 1890, 1904 for the historically minded amongst you. Thanks to George the Atheist for the fact checking on the date, not sure where I came up with 1890.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, June 15th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates as we move into April and beyond, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
roved abroad
Days in, nights out.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Although you’d think that yesterday and today’s posts were shot in the same session, the photo captures are actually separated from each other by about 45 days. Just goes to show you how a humble narrator has been inhabiting the same nocturnal spaces for the last several months, and how many new holes in the fence at the Sunnyside Yards have appeared. One is absolutely desperate for novelty, distraction, and stimuli which does not cause me to reel in horror or disgust at the moment.
Those are Amtrak Northeast Corridor trains, overnighting at Sunnyside Yards. The building they sit next to is a bit of mystery to me, one which I’ve never actually bothered finding out the function of. I know too much about everything, and when I know nothing about something an effort is maintained to protect my ignorance thereof. It’s easier to know everything about something than to know nothing about something. Have I ever mentioned the “Lady Gaga Challenge”?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One purposefully ignores media saturated events like the Superbowl, and annually I try not to know which millionaires will be playing sports ball in the game. If I can make it till two or three days after the game before finding out teams/winners/losers, I’ve won the Super Bowl Challenge. The same goes for the TV series “Scrubs” which was apparently quite popular, but which I’ve excluded all knowledge of the production from entering my brain. The same for Lady Gaga, whom I know is a pop music star, but that’s it. I wouldn’t recognize her music, or even look at a photo and say “that’s Lady Gaga,” but I do know that her dad runs a restaurant at Grand Central Terminal because it’s virtually impossible to escape news cycles which causally mention celebrities.
Pictured above is a maintenance barn operated by the Amtrak people, which has suddenly become visible because of one of those new holes that has appeared in the fencelines at Sunnyside Yards. Again, thanks are offered to whoever it is at Amtrak that’s in charge of holes. Your efforts have made the Coronavirus interval bearable for me, holemaster.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A parting shot from another of the new holes, one which several photographic iterations of have been offered in recent months. I’ve been working on getting this shot right. Ideally, there will be a foggy night sometime, at which point I will check it off my list and say “got it.”
Back next week with some fresh stuff, hopefully, don’t know where or what yet. My plan is to wander around Queens this weekend, or perhaps ride a ferry. I don’t have ambitions anymore, it seems.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, June 8th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates as we move into April and beyond, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
hesitated perceptibly
Archives.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For one reason or another, when I originally set this post up back during the last week of April, I never ended up running it. Don’t remember why. Also don’t remember whether or not any of these shots ended up in other posts, but there you are. As I’ve mentioned a few times in the last few months, there’s a bit of organized labor happening at the Sunnyside Yards and some of my old “go-to” fence holes have disappeared. Luckily, a few new ones have appeared, and just in time for Covid.
Thanks is offered to whomever it is at Amtrak that’s in charge of holes. Sunnyside Yards is a coach yard, which means that this is where trains hang out and enjoy maintenance and cleaning in between trips. You’ve always been able to hear them idling, and you could certainly smell their exhaust, but until recently – no hole through which to see or photograph them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The particular set of holes hereabouts that have recently appeared are on Honeywell Street, which is one of the truss bridges overflying the rail yard.
Honeywell is an archaism, a retention of the name of a street which dates back to the days of an independent Long Island City which didn’t live and breathe under the mercy of Manhattan’s City Hall.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One did manage to drag himself out of the quarantine last night, and scratch along the sidewalk to several visually interesting destinations, but the reason you’re seeing a set of photos from late April in today’s post is entirely due to last week’s curfew.
Back tomorrow with something else – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, June 8th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates as we move into April and beyond, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
listed proscription
Wednesday odds and ends.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the time of this writing, one is in a rather tough spot in terms of fresh photos with which to illustrate the glories of Western Queens, but a week long curfew and suspension of Habeus Corpus will do that to a guy. Hopefully, I’m going to have been out and about a few times between the “then” and the “now.”
So, other than worrying a lot, how did a humble narrator spend his time during the curfew week, while stuck at home?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Well, I worked on perfecting the whole “stars” thing, which involves one of those fairly complicated bits of mathematical formula calculating. There was one evening in particular when the weather was on my side, which means a low dew point and atmospheric humidity. Thing is, you’re basically flying blind when shooting the night sky – manual focus, manual everything and all you can see on the camera is a black screen. A few test shots are required to ensure that your lens is set to “infinity” and everything is sharp. That’s when the camera settings come in to play, which are also manually arrived at. None of this is as simple as it sounds, which is the way I like it – complicated. I used one of my “good” lenses for the shot above, the Sigma 18-35 f1.8.
If you’re interested in pursuing this sort of thing, there’s all sorts of online calculators out there for astrophotography which will guide you through the process of settings and so on. The calculations involved in this boil down, ultimately, to lens focal length and aperture versus the rotation of the earth. The wider the lens, the longer the exposure you can capture without the stars motion blurring. If you can’t see stars in the shot above due to reading this on a device with a small screen, click the image and it will open in Flickr with a larger preview.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is really “raring to go” back out into Queens by now. I’ve found a new windmill to tilt my lance at over in Blissville, and am desirous of seeing the ocean again sometime soon.
Pictured above is the intersection of Queens Blvd. with Greenpoint Avenue and Roosevelt Avenue. It used to once be Greenpoint Avenue all the way to Flushing, connecting the two Dutch colonial centers, but that was a long time ago.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, June 8th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates as we move into April and beyond, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
The Newtown Pentacle 