Archive for May 2023
The very air
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The light is very different here in Pittsburgh, with its river valley atmospherics, than the skies that I used to experience back in the oceanic climes of NYC. It’s been mentioned a few times here, the volatility and changeability of Pittsburgh’s weather. Apparently, it’s the interaction between the flat plains of Ohio and Pittsburgh’s location in the foothills of the Appalachian range, coupled with the corduroy riverine terrain which generates the dynamics above. It could be gray, then raining, then bright sun, and then overcast again all within a couple of hours.
Observationally, Pittsburgh’s specific location is one that causes most of the truly severe weather just blow around it (so, meteorological kudos to George Washington). 50 miles north or south, they’re getting blasted with snow or even tornadoes, and in Pittsburgh it’s just drizzling. I’ve apparently gotten lucky in terms of the move, as this year had a mild enough winter that the TV news meteorologist people have commented on it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Thing is, and you may have noticed this in the last few months, is that the sky here is a distinct part of the setting, so I’ve been making it a point of exposing the images in a manner designed to capture the circumstance. Back in NYC, if you wanted to ‘place’ an image it was just a matter of getting a landmark like the Empire State Building in it and no matter what the subject was, the visual subtext indicated ‘NYC.’
I’m working under the theory right now that Pittsburgh’s ‘Empire State Building’ which ‘sets the place’ is the sky itself, with its dynamic stacks of clouds and omnipresent turbulence. When we first moved here, one of the new neighbors advised that Vitamin D supplements would be advisable, given that on average – 2 out of every 3 days in the Pittsburgh region are at least partially overcast. The locals complain about experiencing ‘SAD’ or ‘Seasonal Affective Disorder’ due to a lack of radiate exposure to the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself, and that these supplements help vouchsafe one against the phenomena.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In general, you’re a lot closer to the sky in this part of the country than you are down on the coastline. The first shot in today’s post depicts UPITT’S Cathedral of Learning in the Oakland section, the second is from the Strip District along the Allegheny River, and the one above was captured while onboard a boat navigating the Monongahela River during a period of fairly heavy rain.
In all three shots, what caught my eye was the sky vault itself, rather than the arrangements along the ground. I don’t know, maybe it’s my imagination. Is any of this real? Where am I? Maybe I’m on a ventilator somewhere and this is all just some fantasy that’s playing out while my brain is dying. Who can tell?
Back next week with more.
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I miss my Tonka trucks
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ok, one more from that long walk, an ‘odds and ends’ post. While walking off Pittsburgh’s Liberty Bridge towards the T Light Rail and my ride back to HQ, I noticed that the action at the concrete factory below me had ceased operations for the day and their equipment was sitting there lit up all pretty like by the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself. Couldn’t resist.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wouldn’t it be great to have a crane as your second car? Easy to park, when you think about it, a crane is. If you can’t find a spot, you can make one by hoisting somebody else’s wheels out of the way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just as I was walking over to the T to get back to HQ, the light began to bounce around inside the steel of the Liberty Bridge which I had just walked over. Fun walk, this one was.
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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“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.
Where, when, what, why, and how
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Welcome to the penultimate post to come out of a fantastic afternoon’s walking experience in Pittsburgh. This one began when a humble narrator debarked the T light rail at its terminal stop on the City’s North Side and marveled at a series of on-ramps. I had crossed the triangle, and was midway across the Liberty Bridge on my way back to another T station on the South Side of the Monongahela River at Station Square.
Thereby, that’s the ‘where.’
The light was absolutely fantastic. It was the 25th of April, a Tuesday. At just about 5 p.m., so that’s the ‘when.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The ‘what’ is a little more complicated, but suffice to say that a bit of a constitutional walk was required. As is my habit, the camera was clutched in my hand. This walk saw me bring a lens out of retirement, my Sigma 18-300mm. It’s a ‘crop sensor’ lens, meaning that on my ‘full frame’ camera, I’d be throwing away about 35% of the image and making minor sacrifices in terms of image quality here and there.
Saying that, I’ve really missed this ‘one lens to rule them all’ kind of setup. It’s really nice to be able to go wide to telephoto without having to fiddle about.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
‘Why’ I was using this piece of glass is simple, or rather its simplicity. When I moved my camera operations over from the trusty Canon 7D which I’d been carrying for about a decade to the R6 Mirrorless model I now use, most of my collection of lenses went into the cabinet along with the 7D body. The new camera uses the ‘RF’ Mount, which Canon has not licensed any Third Parties like Sigma to manufacture for. Canon is obviously trying to make as much as they can off we users, but…
Whereas most of the RF glass Canon has released is kind of miraculous, it’s also set at price points that would make even Apple blush. Even worse, most of the stuff they’ve been putting out is aimed squarely at a) wedding and portrait and b) sports photographers. I really don’t need a 6 pound, 13 inch long 100-300mm lens that costs $9,500 to do Newtown Pentacle and if I did need that sort of reach/capability for a gig or something – I’d rent it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
‘How’ is fairly easily accomplished on the R6, you just change the crop settings in one of the menus and the camera does the rest. I can also shoot squares, or HD TV formatted images using that menu. I have a few ‘native lenses’ that I use all the time which are RF mount – a 24-105mm, a 35mm, and an 85mm. I’ve got an extremely old 70-300mm consumer level lens which I attach to the camera via the usage of an adapter – the same thing I use for any of my EF mount lenses. The 70-300 is pretty unreliable though, and it’s autofocus was crap out of the box when I bought it years ago. After a piss poor performance by the thing recently, I decided that when I need the extra reach or it’s just a ‘photowalk day’ when I’m not trying to get all artsy fartsy the far more reliable Sigma is my ‘go-to.’
That’s the Panhandle Bridge which the T is riding on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been riding this T service a lot, especially on days when I want to keep all my options open. Maybe stop at a bar & inhale a pint, that sort of thing. Stuff I can’t do when I’m driving, basically. Also, I really don’t want to be a ‘car guy’ all the time. Gotta keep scuttling.
Also, as I’ve been quoted saying a million times: ‘you can’t see anything when you’re inside of a vehicle. Even a bike is moving too fast. You need to walk in Cities. Feel them, catch their vibe.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The icing on my photowalk cake was finally finding a POV for the Norfolk Southern tracks, which is from the Liberty Bridge. I’ll admit to stopping my forward movement for about 15 minutes, and nearly jumping for joy when I heard it coming from the other side of the tree line. These tracks are on a shelf carved into Mount Washington. I’ve gotten shots from the ground of this scene which I’ve shown y’all in the past.
I feel like I’m starting to catch the vibe here now. 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.
Whatever you do, don’t stop moving
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Dat’s what dey call’s da ‘Boulevard of the Allies,’ round these parts. Turns out that the pedestrian pathway leading to the Liberty Bridge which I’d been looking for is part of ‘it.’
There’s a regular ground level street with the same name found just west of this structure, but this approach span and the bridge itself represents nearly a half mile of steel and concrete that rises multiple stories up from the ground. This elevated section in particular is ‘mega massive.’ It cloverleafs with other high speed roads like ‘Crosstown Boulevard’ and they all feed southbound traffic first to the Liberty Bridge and then into the Liberty Tunnel, and or the P.J. McArdle roadway, on the south side of the Monongahela River.
Down under, that’s Pittsburgh’s Second Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is what that view looks like from Second Avenue. There’s an odd collection of buildings down here, including a homeless shelter and the City jail. There’s also a lot of Law Enforcement related stuff down here, lots of cops milling about, and signage suggests bail bondsman activity. The street is somewhat forbidding, and is populated by people who are obviously down on their luck. I guess that includes me, so there you go.
As it turned out the place where you could access that pedestrian walkway over the Liberty Bridge pictured above was found where the Boulevard of the Allies first becomes airborne, which is also more or less the titular end of Second Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator continued on his way, towards the other side of the river, but I was all excited by the points of view on offer.
As mentioned, this is one of the routes which I drive all the time getting to and from. HQ is about 5 or 6 miles away to the south, on the other side of Mount Washington in the Dormont section of the South Hills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Liberty Bridge. With the approaches, this 1928 steel cantilever bridge is 2,663 feet long and is said to carry some 63,000 vehicle trips a day. Like most of the bridges you encounter in this region, there’s a protected by concrete barrier pedestrian and bike path. What happens when you get off the bridge on the other side is a bit less thought out than you’d like, but there you are.
Scuttling on, ever forward, that’s me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s Pittsburgh’s Light Rail – the T – which has just left its First Avenue Station. The elevated track goes underground into an old freight train tunnel which has been converted for the T’s usage, nearby. Ultimately, its terminal stop is on the North Shore of the Allegheny River, which is where this particularly narrative choked walk began last week.
In real time, this was an afternoon. The photo opportunities were a bonus, as what I was engaged in was actually exercise related. The old program which used to be religiously obeyed in Queens is back. One day out for a couple of miles there and back, one day not, with some grandiose multi mile physical effort playing out on the weekend or whenever it’s possible. The particular walk being described in these posts isn’t one of the grandiose ones, rather it’s a short one.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the things which made Pittsburgh attractive was the quality of its healthcare space. The post industrial recovery plan which they’ve been following here for a few decades is referred to as ‘eds and meds.’ ‘Eds’ refers to the universities and research spheres, and ‘meds’ to a saturation of hospitals and healthcare outfits found here. Doctor appointments in Pittsburgh are a completely different banana than they are in NYC. The docs don’t have to book seven patients an hour in order to cover the rent.
Since moving here, and particularly after describing Newtown Creek to the doc, lots of tests got ordered. I’ve been poked, prodded, sampled, and scanned in the name of creating a baseline to judge my future degradation and dissolution against. Last Friday, while drinking my morning coffee, an alert came in that results from one of the recent irradiations had revealed that I haven’t got Lung Cancer. Yay.
Tomorrow – the shots I was after on this walk.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
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Give me Liberty, you can keep the death
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described last week, one recently embarked on an afternoon constitutional walk. A ride on Pittsburgh’s Light Rail service arrived me to the north side of the Allegheny River, whereupon a short scuttle found me crossing one of the ‘3 sisters’ bridges, heading south to a crossing of the Monongahela River using the Liberty Bridge.
‘Photowalk’ as I use the term involves moving through an urban space you’re fairly ignorant about, while noticing literally everything with a camera in my hand, and using little more than street smarts and a vague sense of direction as a guide. That’s how you blunder across things, and find out why some things are found where they are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Downtown Pittsburgh is how I think you’d describe the area I was moving through. Big Corporate, and Governmental, offices that are set back from the street by parklets – the whole Le Corbusier thing. The sidewalks are wide. When you want to cross a street, you are meant to push a big button on the utility pole which plays you recorded messages that instruct you when it’s safe to cross. Traffic moves pretty quickly around here. Downtown looks like ‘the Future,’ if you were imagining the 21st century back in 1983.
Hey, I’m a well known anti-fan of a lot of modern buildings. I had a less than stellar reaction to Hudson Yards, as you might recall.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I believe that the Romanesque fortress pictured above is part of some sort of court house, but that’s only if I believe the signage posted at its entrances. That is some serious Batman/Gotham City shit going on right there. They did, in fact, shoot one of the Dark Knight movies here in Pittsburgh.
Having crossed an admittedly flat and easy to walk section of Pittsburgh’s triangular shaped business district, reliance on the innate sense of direction carried me to the surprisingly long Liberty Bridge for my crossing of the Monongahela River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While walking up what turned out to be a dead end pathway towards where I thought the pedestrian path of the Liberty Bridge began (wherein that innate sense of direction I’m so proud of betrayed me and sent me into a hazardous circumstance), I encountered this amazing bit of engineering and spatial accommodation. This parking lot was built into every single available inch of space around the supports of the bridge. Wow.
So, I found myself having walked up the wrong path, which was basically an actual highway onramp. Yikes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Apparently there used to be a pedestrian path here, once, long ago. It’s also clearly closed off. I drive over this bridge all the time, and what I’d seen while doing so had piqued my attentions. A humble narrator would not be defeated by mere geography!
No reason not to get a photo of it from this point, though.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I scuttled past of few down on their luck types who were standing alongside the ramp with signage describing their various plights which adjured passing vehicular strangers to render aid onto the sign wielder. One of these fellows had just stepped out of a fence hole, leading to a parking lot, a path which – once followed in reverse – allowed me to lope and scuttle back down to a regular sidewalk.
More 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 