Archive for March 2023
get off my lawn
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I haven’t had a bagel in a little over 4 months, which is a realization that has just set in. Other existential horror which I can offer today involved a pulled muscle in my left calf, an injury which occurred just yesterday when I was running up a hill to get into position to photograph a passing train. Neither of these conditions explain why I’m showing you archive shots today. What can I tell you? A daily schedule is hard to maintain, even after all these years of doing so.
The good news is that the Pittsburgh analogue of “Open House NY” has announced a bevy of tour opportunities which I greedily ordered tickets for at the beginning of the week, and so has the “Rivers of Steel” outfit at the Carrie Blast Furnace. I’ve got boat tours to attend!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been working on learning a few things the last few weeks, notably trying to perfect the capture of time lapse footage. It’s so boring shooting this sort of thing that I’ve decided to start bringing my old camera out with me when I’m capturing time lapse images just to have something to do while the 2-3 hour long process plays out on the “good” camera. The problem isn’t capturing the sequence, instead it’s about perfecting the formula by which the images can smoothly transition from day to night without looking like a scene from Blade Runner.
I’m currently getting close. I’ve got the process more or less figured out in terms of the technical and “in camera” stuff. So far, what I’ve doped out through trial and error involves setting several menus to “auto” which is anathema to me normally. A recent moment of realization involved restricting the auto ISO settings to a narrower range than the one I use normally. Once I can reliably produce smooth video time lapses, then I can start getting “creative” with them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another major distraction I’m dealing with involves a new desktop setup back here at HQ. Wiring it up correctly is a bit of trial and error thing these days, since equipment manufacturers seem to no longer host actual manuals or support documents on their sites. It’s a real pickle, and my desk is currently a mass of loose wires leading to and from other boxes of wires and circuit boards which aren’t doing what I want them to do. This is annoying.
Back tomorrow with something fresh, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“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.
Damn, that’s one heck of a Dam
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The United States Army Corps of Engineers’ Montgomery Locks and Dam is one of the giant honking pieces of infrastructure an inquisitive wanderer might encounter in Pennsylvania’s Beaver County, while scuttling along the Ohio River. This isn’t too far from the currently undefended border of the states of Ohio and Pennsylvania, where the now infamous East Palestine locomotive derailment occurred. Up the Ohio towards Pittsburgh, you’ve got the Shell Cracker Plant mentioned on Monday and just down the river, there’s a nuclear power plant.
USACE has a page at their site which describes their operations on the Ohio in this region, which can be accessed here. To summarize – this monster dam and gate system was built between 1932 and 1936, and it replaced three earlier (late 19th century) wooden locks and dams.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The mechanics of what this facility does involves mechanical lift gates and spillways which regulate the amount of river flowing through them. This outfit works in concert with other lock and dam installations to allow the Corps to maintain the “Pittsburgh Pool” and other navigational areas, but it isn’t intended to control the flooding issues which had previously bedeviled the region. A lot of Federal cash went into not having anything like the disastrous St. Patrick’s Day flood of 1936 happen again, but there’s a completely different set of infrastructure prophylactics in place for that sort of work. This is one of the many things that I’m reading up on at the moment.
See? I’ve learned, and am learning, new things since moving here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the opposite shore, USACE has two lock systems, one for large ships and commercial vessels and another for smaller private or pleasure craft ones. The commercial lock is 600 feet long by 110 wide, and the secondary is 360 feet long by 56 feet wide. It’s costs about $6 million a year to keep this machine running, or so I’m informed.
The Ohio River is just under 1,000 miles long. It starts in Pittsburgh and eventually intersects with the Mississippi River at the southern tip of the State of Illinois. A river of cities, industry, and commerce – and a de facto extension of the Mason Dixon line between north and south – the westward flowing Ohio is also considered to be the most polluted waterway in the United States over the course of its length. It actually edges out Newtown Creek on pollution, but unlike my beloved creek, the Ohio is a source of drinking water for many of the communities found on its banks – parts of Pittsburgh, or West Virginia’s Wheeling for instance. The Ohio is thought to be the sixth oldest river in North America, and several civilizations have depended upon the ancestral waterway for its riches, including our own.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having followed the aforementioned group of fishermen whom I had noticed leaving a pickup for a trail towards the water, one soon found himself staring into the lift gates and spillways at the heart of the operation. I had prepared for my afternoon with a “full pack” camera bag and I had all of my toys and tools with me. These are all tripod shots with the lens wearing a 10 stop ND filter to slow down the scene and mellow out the visual distraction of water ripples and that sort of thing. Generally speaking, it was pretty bright out and these are 8-10 second captures.
When I’ve got a few extra bucks in my pocket, somewhere down the line, I’m planning on replacing my current set of old school screw on filters with the more modern magnetic snap on kind. So much easier to deal with, the magnet ones. You screw the receiver onto the lens and then just “click” the filter onto it. The screw on kind are dust collectors extraordinaire, are quite “fiddly,” and it is very, very easy to scratch your expensive lens with the exposed metal edge of the screw fitting on the thing. Yeah, I know, camera nerd stuff… sorry.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The weather was definitely on my side for once, with temperatures in the low 50’s and a bright sky. It’s been a pretty warm winter here, but that’s also seen a lot of super cloudy days with dismal lighting. Back in NYC, this sort of atmospheric season would see me riding a lot of Subways out to distant stations and “shooting trains.” The subway system presents a series of horrific challenges, photography wise. Mastering that environment, which you’ll soon learn the rules of, is a fantastic exercise for learning how to work a camera.
One of the other things I’ve learned here in Pittsburgh is that when the skies are good, you take advantage of that. Pittsburgh is one of the cloudiest regions in the entire country, with something like 200 days of the year (on average) being cloudy or overcast. This is apparently caused by the shape of the terrain, which causes most storms to fly around or over Pittsburgh. Other surrounding communities less than an hour’s drive away will get walloped by snow or thunderstorms whereas in Pittsburgh itself you just get clouds and drizzle. Not a meteorologist, can’t tell you why, but it has something to do with being located in what’s considered “the foothills of the Appalachian Range.”
Where I was standing had signage indicating that this was a park, and in tune with that the thing that’s surprised this transplanted New Yorker just about everywhere I’ve visited – there was a Porta Potty available to the public to take care of business if the need arose. To a former New Yorker, this is acknowledgment of human biology is nepenthe.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator enjoyed a short chat with a young fellow working as a contractor for the Feds doing maintenance on the dam and its spillways. He described what sounded like an incredibly dangerous job freeing debris and mud from occluding the gate system, one which pays less an hour than a job working a cash register back in NYC. I headed back up the hill to the Mobile Oppression Platform, whereupon my gear was packed away and the camera settings returned to my ‘catch as catch can’ handheld settings, and away from the landscape and filter setup.
Tomorrow, something different at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“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.
A place called Industry
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I admit it, it was the Shell Cracker Plant that drew me in, but it was seeing the nuclear plant’s cooling towers which made me happy while visiting Pennsylvania’s Beaver County. I’m semi confident in stating my outright and admitted guess that they’re a part of the Beaver Valley County Power Station. Guessing, as said, but there you are. First time in these parts. I think that I was in a place called Shippingport, after visiting another hamlet dubbed Industry.
I drove about the waterfront of the Ohio River for a little bit after getting a few shots of the Shell facility, doing my ‘lookie loo scoutie’ thing. A humble narrator probably looked pretty ‘sus’ to the locals while tooling along in the Mobile Oppression Platform and sticking the camera lens out the window every now and again, but there you go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was a mill with a lot of people doing some sort of work within. Seemed like a metals business, from the overall shape of the place, but since I’m still trying to just understand where things are hereabouts… I wasn’t going to hang around and ask the hard hats what they were getting up to. There was something else nearby, which I had spotted while scrutinizing a Google map of the area, that I wanted to check out.
I had to drive through a residential town area to get there, but that wasn’t a problem. Really nice and neat little community, kind of lovely water front place with some houses that enjoyed Ohio River frontage property, dogs in yards, that sort of thing, and all framed up with the Nuclear Plant in the background. Seemed like a pretty nice place. I’d show you what it looked like, but I don’t take pictures of people’s houses for this blog because that would just get weird fast.
Factories, bridges, that sort of thing is ok by me. Houses? How’d you feel seeing some weirdo in a black raincoat pull up in a car that looks like a Star Wars Stormtrooper’s helmet right in front of your door, and start waving a camera around? Lock and load, right?
Weird. Fast.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The United States Army Corps of Engineers’ Montgomery Locks and Dam, that’s what’s pictured above, and it’s found on the Ohio River. As I pulled up to this view, a group of fisherman type guys were piling out of a pickup and they filed down a hill to get to some opportune spot below. One followed their pathway, after finding a place to park the car. It’s Federal property, so I’m technically an owner with something like a 1/363,000,000th share of the thing. You too.
Parking in this sort of area isn’t about the difficulty of finding a spot to stick the car, instead it’s trying to find a spot where you know it’s legal or socially ok to do so. In some areas of Pittsburgh, it’s considered an affront to park in front of somebody’s abode if you don’t have any particular business with them or a direct neighbor. Google up “the parking chairs of Pittsburgh” if you want to know more about this sociological wrinkle.
I’ll tell you all about this dam tomorrow.
“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.
Plastic Beaver
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One came upon the fact that there’s a town called “Industry” about a half hour’s drive from where one dwells, and it’s found in Western Pennsylvania’s Beaver County. Most of Beaver County, which also offers a fairly invisible but lively border with the State of Ohio, is considered to be a part of what I’ve read several references to as “Greater Metropolitan Pittsburgh,” which is a geographic and cultural “something” that I’m still trying to encapsulate in my thoughts.
Since I like to take a look at things myself and in person, a quick drive to the area was undertaken, after scanning Google maps satellite views of the area and looking for any public waterfront areas or parks. Didn’t see much of that, and instead I found myself standing in the parking lot of a closed restaurant along the Ohio River staring at a plastics factory.
The Ohio River snakes through this part of Pennsylvania, flowing from its “Mile Zero” point at the conjuncture of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers in Downtown Pittsburgh, which is about thirty to forty miles away. I spotted a location to get some shots of the ‘Shell Polymers Monaca’ facility using Google maps, as is my habit. The plant is colloquially referred to as the “Shell ethylene cracker plant,” or at least that’s how the local news TV reporters refer to it whenever there’s a report about flaring or odors or discharges. Hey, if it’s good enough for CBS… As it happens, such an event had occurred the night before my visit and workers were still spraying water on a couple of pieces of equipment which were observed as glowing orange hot in videos captured by area residents. There’s lots of controversy surrounding this joint.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After all those years on Newtown Creek, you can probably imagine what I was thinking while shooting these.
Pennsylvania’s terrain offers prodigious amounts of shale oil and actual “Natural Gas.” This plant’s design allows it to convert and refine gas into other commercial chemicals, notably ethylene. Ethylene is apparently the polymer feed stock used for plastic bottles and other disposable containers. The Shell plant’s construction costs put food on a whole lot of tables for a long time, and it continues to be a regional economic engine that is just getting started. According to reports, which should be read with a grain of salt due to corporate and regulatory propaganda, an economic nimbus is starting to emerge in the surrounding communities due to monetary osmosis. Jobs, jobs, jobs.
The chemical this Shell plant is designed to manufacture, using a feedstock of Natural Gas that’s pumped in via pipeline, is a kind of plastic that’s used primarily for soda bottles. This factory is expected to manufacture some 1.6 million metric tons of the stuff a year – when it’s fully online. Regulatory authorities in Pennsylvania have licensed Shell to release 2.2 million tons of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere annually as a byproduct of their operations on the Ohio River in Beaver. The plant has been having growing pains, with frequent flares and reports of other disturbances. Shell says they’re still working on the system.
Saying that, and mentioning the Newtown Creek perspective once again, this is… y’know what? I’m new here in Pennsylvania, and my opinion on this newest of petrochemical mills is meaningless.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the life lessons I’ve learned on Newtown Creek is summed up by one of my frequently offered adages – It’s not good, it’s not bad, it just is. The post apocalyptic conditions left behind when the steel industry picked up stakes back in the 70’s and 80’s in this region means that a lot of things make sense to the people here which conflict with other views of the world. Fracking, plastics factories, etc. Jobs.
Saying that, please use reusable bottles and cans as much as possible. It’s already too late, but you might as well try to not be an asshole about it. Also, pick up after the dog.
Back tomorrow.
“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.
End of week, odds and ends
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few odds and ends photos from my recent exploratory visit to Pittsburgh’s Oakland. Popped this one out from behind the wheel of the Mobile Oppression Platform on my way home while stuck at a light.
The bridge in the distance is called the 30th street Bridge over the Monongahela River, but truth be told, I was pulled in by the painted “B&O” Railroad logo on the overpass. If that’s original… it has to date back to when I was in high school and that was before Metallica.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
See that shot above? Panther Hollow, that’s all I’m going to say. I know what time to be here, and now I know where it is. At the right time, and this is the right place, there’s going to be a train in future iterations of his shot.
I’ve now got two locations scouted for the “money” rail shots. Right place, not the right time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back home in Dormont, and Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself successfully went out for drinks and dinner and then took mass transit back home. That’s the T street car leaving the Potomac station at beer o’clock.
Back next week with more from Pittsburgh, lords and ladies.
“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 