The Newtown Pentacle

Friday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One is led to believe, by a bit of ‘scratch the surface’ research, that the Marshall Lake spillway dates back to December of 1933. A partnership between Allegheny County and the New Deal era’s Federal Civil Works Administration built this particularity satisfying bit of infrastructure along an ancestral waterway called Old Pine Creek, which used to terminate in a morass of swampy marsh. Raising the water level caused that marshy wasteland to drown, which in turn and over time formed the 75 acre Marshall Lake found in Pittsburgh’s North Park.

A humble narrator is always fascinated by the sort of technology which doesn’t need to be plugged in or fueled or even actively looked after. I advocated for this sort of thing on and around Newtown Creek back in NYC, but everybody in Government favored technological and electricity hungry solutions to the Creek’s ‘flow’ problem. I like using gravity, as it’s free, and all of the technology and effort you need for the thing to operate is front loaded into the construction.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I circled the spillway, getting photos of it from different angles. The first shot looks directly down into it, whereas this one depicts the levels of the surrounding lake. Neat.

Several people asked me what I was doing, to which I replied “infrastructure nerd,” and they gave me a sympathetic smile. To be fair, I was the only person there with a tripod and fancy camera.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

After dropping down from the lake, the water forms up into a waterway called Pine Creek, which flows all the way down to the Allegheny River, in the Etna section of the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area. Pictured above is the head of Pine Creek, which is directly connected to the spillway.

One continued his circling and scuttling.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

As mentioned in prior posts, I had set myself up to do landscape style shots on this particular morning. The camera was set to record the scene in a manner which allowed for visualization of the flowing water with a slight motion blur. The one above was captured at ISO 100/f8 for 25 seconds, with a ten stop ND filter affixed to the lens.

The neat thing about this spillway is the highly aerated and biologically rich water which it releases into Pine Creek. Clever, clever.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This one was f4 for 8 seconds at ISO 100, but I recorded multiple images, with the focal point moving around the frame. One combined them using the ‘focus stacking’ technique.

I had been actively shooting for several hours by this point, and was sorely in need of both coffee and breakfast.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Luckily, I had thought ahead and had a thermos of coffee from HQ back in the Mobile Oppression Platform, which was parked nearby. I dropped off my heavy bag at the car, grabbed the coffee, and then sat down on a rock nearby a boat launch on Marshall Lake’s eastern shore. Even though I was taking a break, there was no reason for the camera to be lollygagging, so I kept on hitting the shutter button.

Back next week with something different, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.

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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.