Archive for September 2023
Whiskey Boys Trail
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I find myself having to head over to Home Depot about once a month for some needed gizmo or material or tool or ‘something random.’ The drive to the nearest outpost of the retail giant takes me from the Pittsburgh suburb of Dormont through another town, dubbed Scott Township, on my way to a third community called Bridgeville (which counterintuitively doesn’t have all that much going on in the way of bridges). About midway through the 20 minute drive from Dormont, where HQ is located, I’ve been noticing signage indicating the presence of the “Whiskey Boys Trail” and “Kane Woods.”
Normally this sort of thing ain’t exactly my bag, but Moe the Dog prospers in natural areas. I still can’t let him off the leash, as he’s a puppy and thereby a total idiot, but part of his training and development requires trees and dirt. I don’t like taking him places that I haven’t checked out first, so… Hence.
A good dog is a tired dog, that’s the mantra.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are basically three or four paths set into a fairly steep hill here. Every now and then, you’ll find a visual break in the ‘sylvania’ thing and see a road, or as in the case of the shot above, a bunch of utility poles. An hour’s drive from Pittsburgh will land you in actual, real woods, the kind people go hunting in and which are known for Sasquatch sightings. This ain’t that, but after shlepping around this trail for about an hour or so I realized that the little bastard would love this spot.
I’ve since returned with Moe, who proceeded to pull me up a hill at running puppy speeds. He ate about 25 pounds of spotted lantern flies, composted a few cubits worth of sticks and branches with his snapping puppy jaws, and was generally exhausted after we returned back home. He slept for an hour, puked lantern fly parts, and was a bit calmer than normal for about 24 hours. Then he bit me in the crotch again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Moe has the advantage on this sort of substrate, I would mention, with his quadruped stance and pointy toes. I was wearing a pair of Merrel hiking boots with nearly bald soles, and he more or less was able to drag my fat butt anywhere he wanted to. If I had a sled with me, we could have delivered presents to orphans.
Back next week.
“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.
Chillin like a villain
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a medium length walk, one needed to wait out the oncoming sunset, so I visited that bar I’ve been hanging out in that offers somewhat unparalleled railroad views. I ordered a pint, and sat down about 7 pm, with sunset meant to occur just before 8 pm. It didn’t take long.
That’s CSX #3356, a General Electric ET44AC model locomotive.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In case you’re curious, this is the scene from a more personal perspective and occupation. This bar is called “Sly Fox Brewery,” and it seems to be connected to a real estate project called ‘The Highline.’ Said development sits across the tracks from the HQ of the local bicycle people, and a public park called ‘The Color Park.’ Visiting the latter is how I stumbled upon the former.
Pretty decent cup of beer, I’d mention. That’s a Pilsner. I like a cold yellow beer during warm weather, but switch over to stouts like Guinness when it’s cooler. Despite the abundance of postings from this establishment in recent weeks, I don’t actually drink all that much, rather I’m a ‘nurser’ and that pint glass lasted me around 40 minutes. At any rate, I like sitting outside and I especially like the fact that a nearby series of grade crossings for the rail tracks means that alarm bells go off in advance of the trains.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Trains are damnably difficult to photograph. First off – they’re huge. Secondly, they are moving much faster than the human eye would suggest they are. Even with the signal alarm bells going off, it’s a panic to get your settings right and compose a shot as the train comes rocketing through.
I’m actually pretty happy with the sun dogs and strobing in the shot above, as a note. I was using a counterintuitive formula for these – f11 at 1/2000th of a second at ISO 6400. That combination gave me a broad hyperfocal range, froze the action, and also produced a nice pixel density in the RAW file for me to work with during the developing stage.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I paid my tab as the sun was going down and proceeded to the so called Highline, which is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of about 60 feet or so over the spot pictured in the second shot. It’s the overpass you see in the third one directly above.
One unfurled the tripod and set the camera up for ‘low and slow’ shooting at ISO 100 and a narrow aperture of f18. The shutter speed for the shot above was 15 seconds, which preserved some of the texture of the waters of the Monongahela River and the clouds. That’s a concrete outfit at the left, and the busy Liberty Bridge is in silhouette.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As it got darker, the settings changed. The camera’s aperture got wider and the exposure times longer. One of the tricks to low light photography is being conscious of the color temperature of the scene. Digital capture happens on three plates – RGB, or Red, Green Blue. If you’ve got your camera set up with a capture temperature that leans red, it means very little representation on the blue plate and you get a noisy image. Yes, you can change the temperature in Adobe camera RAW, but I’ve learned that the capture temperature really matters.
Pittsburgh still uses old school sodium bulb street lamps, so you need to compensate for the saturated yellows and oranges which that sort of scenario creates and casts. Lately, I set my custom temperature to about 2750 Kelvin, whereas back in NYC with its modern LED street light luminaires I’d use 3800 K.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While heading back out towards the street, which I’d walk a few blocks of to get to the T light rail station, where I’d in turn acquire a ride back home, I waved the camera around a bit while it was still attached to the tripod.
Why not drive? I’m an absolutist when it comes to drinking and driving, and the whole point of the day was to get some exercise anyway. Not a drop passes the lips when I’m expected to be behind the wheel. Automobiling in Pittsburgh is difficult enough without being impaired. Additionally, it kind of ties my hands in terms of wandering and discovering, since I have to worry about the car.
“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.
DUFPBO
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I haven’t made this joke in nearly a year: Down Under the Fort Pitt Bridge Onramp, that’s where I was, and absolutely nobody in Pittsburgh calls it DUFPBO except me. Back in New York and along Newtown Creek, a humble narrator would often christen otherwise nondescript areas with nomens like ‘DUPBO’ for Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp, ‘DUKBO’ for the area around the Kosciuszcko Bridge, and there was also DUMABO (Metropolitan Avenue), DUGSBO (Grand Street), DULIE (Long Island Expressway), and ‘DUGABO’ (Greenpoint Avenue Bridge). After announcing the terminology on tours, I’d follow it up with “you have to,stay ahead of the Real Estate people with this sort of thing.” Yeah, I’m an idiot, but I have a good time.
As far as DUMABO goes, yeah – like Peter Stuyvesant – you could call it ‘Arnheim,’ but other than a few history nerds like me, nobody would have any idea what you were referring to. Arnheim is a deep cut in North Brooklyn history, btw.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve had a few Pittsburgh people ask me what the fascination with trains is about, lately. Short answer is that non passenger rail was such a scarce commodity back in my old stomping grounds, the frequency and variety of rail moving through Pittsburgh just grabs at my attentions.
CSX #5417, a General Electric ES44DC locomotive, is a positive infant by CSX standards having been built in January of 2007. It was doing Coke train duty. The coke was likely coming from one of U.S. Steel’s mills further up the river, and the train was heading westwards in the direction of Ohio.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This ‘zone’ used to be all rail yards, I’m told, belonging to the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie RR outfit. Me? I was heading more or less eastwards. As mentioned yesterday, I was traveling light with a fairly minimal kit in my camera bag, but I had a tripod with me and sunset in mind.
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.
I’m walking here
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A recent hullabaloo involving Pittsburgh’s light rail system, dubbed “The T,” found a humble narrator at the Penn Station stop on the system. This is a closed/disused station which the service normally doesn’t visit, nearby the former HQ of the Pennsylvania Railroad (which has been converted to a high end residential condominium), and the modern day Amtrak station and Greyhound Bus Terminal. I understand that seeing a T unit here is an exceedingly rare dealie, so I took a picture.
One was heading to the North Side of the Allegheny River, but due to the tunnel maintenance which caused the hullabaloo, employees of the service instructed us to debark the light rail and then board a shuttle bus to take us the rest of the way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The bus discharged the merry band of commuters a humble narrator was a member of nearby PNC Park, which is a sports ball stadium built around the needs of the Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball corporation, and that’s where my day’s walk began. The plan was to head back to a T station on the south side of the Monongahela River, and the timing of the excursion was built around the descent of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself behind Ohio.
The first set of negotiable obstacles in my path involved the Allegheny River, so a quick set of obfuscations and interlocutors found me walking to the Fort Duquesne Bridge, which spans the waterway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After walking Fort Duquesne – aka the ‘bridge to nowhere’ – I would surmount the Fort Pitt bridge over the Monongahela. It was warm out, but the humidity was in a comfortable range. I was traveling fairly light on this particular day, with a minimum camera kit slung onto my back.
That’s Fort Pitt Bridge, spanning the Monongahela River, in the distance and at the right of the shot.
Back tomorrow with more.
“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.
CSX in the rain
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To start with, as a humble narrator is punching away at the keyboard and writing this very post – he’s just suffered through a root canal procedure at one of the local Dentists here in Pittsburgh. This wasn’t a bucket list assignation, I would mention, instead it’s the result of me not exactly winning the genetic lottery when it comes to dentition. Ultimately, it’s just pain. I’ve felt worse.
Conversely and regarding the photograph above, captured on an evening during which I was feeling considerably less pain – since I was at a bar – one was lucky enough to witness another parade of CSX freight trains navigating along the CSX Pittsburgh Subdivision along southern side of the Monongahela River. That’s CSX #296, which is positively modern – a General Electric built AC4400CW model locomotive which hit the rails in September of 1997 – or so I’m told. It was pulling carloads of coke and coal in an eastwards direction.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next up was CSX #916 – an ‘ES44AH’ model locomotive also built by the guys and gals at General Electric. It was hauling cargo boxes and tankers, heading westwards.
The worst mouth pain I ever experienced was the time that I got kicked in the mouth during a biker bar fight on the west side of Manhattan. This is before the gentrification dealie really got going in the Meat Market zone, and I caught the toe of combat boot as it smashed vertically into one of my front teeth. That one hurt for a long while, mainly as I didn’t have the cash on hand to visit a dentist. I still feel it sometimes, mainly when trying to eat a hard pretzel.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The life I lead now is quite different, as compared to those days. Back then, when an injury occurred which didn’t involve bleeding to death, I’d just kind of suck it up. I’ve been stabbed, beat up… heck, I once had a guy work me over with a baseball bat back in the Brooklyn days. Once, I broke my drawing hand, during an interval when I was working as a professional comic artist and illustrator. My ‘pay the rent’ job had to get done, so I propped the brush into my swollen digits and then used masking tape to sequester my broken hand around the thing in order to get the job done. To this day, my right hand’s pinky finger still sticks out at an odd angle. It looks like I’m drinking tea from a comically small cup, all the time.
That’s CSX #5206, a GE ES40DC model locomotive. As you can see, it was starting to rain, but I kept on drinking beer and pointing the camera at passing locomotives.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
By the time that CSX #568 came along, hauling cargo boxes and tanker cars, the rain had become steadier just as it was starting to get dark out. My lens got wet, as you can tell from the streaks, but there’s something I really like about that one above.
I’ve got a million injury tales, as a humble narrator is both a real klutz and has a long history of annoying people so much that they are compelled to rain blows upon me. The most recent major ‘owwie’ was that ghoulish crush injury to my left big toe that happened (at home) near the end of 2019, which is the reason why I was limping when the pandemic came around. That was a real joy, I tell’s ya. Thing is, I used to heal like Wolverine, but not so much anymore in my dotage.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A second shot of #568 was my favorite of the session, with the droplets of rain suspended in the head lamp illumination of the locomotive.
I don’t really talk about the heart attack these days, but that happened too. It’s the ‘levee breaking’ moment for a humble narrator, and the juncture moment by which I divide my life into ‘before and after.’ I guess that moving out of NYC to Pittsburgh is another such moment, and it’s something I’d have never even considered prior to that experience. The experience changed me profoundly.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After about four pints of beer, I was half in the bag and it was time to head back to HQ in nearby Dormont. Luckily, just after paying my tab, CSX #7271 came roaring through. It’s a GE AC4400CWM model. Frankly, I don’t remember what it was hauling, as I was on my way out.
The Root Canal business has been a real pain in the butt, or noggin more accurately. Expensive procedure, but I’ve been experiencing quite a bit of excruciatingly annoying pain for the last few weeks whenever ingesting cold beverages or eating anything that required serious chomping. It’s part of the whole medical journey I’ve been on since getting to Pittsburgh.
Excellent health system here in Pittsburgh, I would offer. A marked contrast to the rushed experience of NYC’s system. Same science, of course, but the Docs here take their time with you since they’re not as worried about paying their landlord’s an exorbitant rent.
“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 