Around and around
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When a humble narrator finds himself driving around Pittsburgh, the camera is always sitting on the passenger seat, and is preset for a certain kind of capture. If i find myself sitting at a light, or have pulled over somewhere and am saying ‘wow, lookit that,’ said camera is often rudely thrust through either the Mobile Oppression Platform’s moon roof or the drivers side window so that a quick image gets captured.
Recent endeavor found me heading over to the City’s ‘Oakland’ section, which is when the shot above was captured, depicting the Cathedral of Learning looming over the scene.
I was on my way to attend and observe a meeting of a local transit group, who are headquartered in this section. The irony of driving to a transit group’s meeting is not lost upon me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After the event, I was struck by the manse across the street from the meeting’s address. The housing stock in this section of Pittsburgh is astoundingly well wrought. Oakland and neighboring Squirrel Hill, in my experience, are the most ‘urban’ sections of Pittsburgh in terms of overall population density. There are other sections which are also quite ‘urban,’ but these exist within the negative connotation of the term – crimey, grimey, etc. There’s a potpourri here.
Where HQ is located in the South Hills, alternatively, is quite suburban. Saying that, analogizing things back to my frame of reference back in NYC, when I say ‘suburban’ I mean the Queens/Nassau County border or the Yonkers/Westchester border and not ‘deep suburban’ like Suffolk or Putnam counties.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Liberty Tunnel – or ‘tubes’ – pictured above, a mile long and hundred year old vehicle tunnel that’s punched through the base of Mount Washington on the southern bank of the Monongahela River. One was sitting at a light waiting for my chance to turn into the facility and head back home, when the fancy of getting a night shot of the place struck me. It’s a long light, after all.
The settings on the camera were previously configured, as mentioned above. Daylight wise, that means f4 and ISO 800 with the exposure settings dialed into whatever they need to be. Night wise it’s f2.8 and ISO 6400. The model of camera I use has a swivel out screen, which allows one to point it at something which would otherwise require a gymnast to use the diopter eye piece in order to compose and adjust exposure on otherwise.
Back tomorrow with something very 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 
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