The Newtown Pentacle

Monday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

A recent Sunday evening found one at Pittsburgh’s Carrie Furnace, once again, and attending a ‘photo safari.’ This time around I had pre-decided on using a wide angle 16mm lens, one which I’ve been enjoying the use of lately, as my primary weapon. It was affixed to the camera, the tripod was deployed, and thusly did your humble narrator ‘get busy.’

Carrie Furnace is a ruination, the ‘left behind,’ of a former steel mill found alongside the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh’s Swissvale section. This facility was once a part of the similarly abandoned Homestead mill complex, which was – in turn – once the largest example of such an industrial installation in these United States or – in fact – the world.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The opportunity to visit the site cost me $35, and was marketed both to myself and all the other lookie-loos as a ‘photo safari.’

You’re obliged to receive a quick safety primer from a representative of the ‘Rivers of Steel’ non profit outfit, who care for the site, and during said talk they point out restrictions on where you can and cannot go. You’re also required to wear a hard hat, which is a sensible precaution given the crumbling state of the surviving buildings.

I got started with the clicking and the whirring. I’ve been told that this section of the plant is where materials would be weighed and measured out on their way to the actual furnace, where they’d then be exposed to volcanic temperatures in pursuance of created admixtures needed for steel manufacture.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The small but powerful flashlight I carry with me was deployed, and a second or two of intense light was actuated from the thing for ‘fill light.’

This photo safari was designated as being a ‘sunset’ experience, but unfortunately at this time of year the sun doesn’t dip down behind Ohio until about 8:30 p.m., at which time I was actually starting the car to head back to HQ. No sunset for me, but… Still…

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I’ve been here a few times at this point, and my last visit was during a pleasant morning just a few weeks ago, so this is likely going to be the last of Carrie Furnace that you’ll be seeing here – for a few months at least.

Saying that, it’s been a real pleasure every time I’ve visited the place. I like ‘perfecting’ a series of shots, after gaining familiarity with a location. Initial visits are sort like taking a visual survey for me, while behind the camera. After gaining some experience with a location, you go in with a plan based on prior experience, and prior shoots.

From this ideation is whence my ‘wide angle’ scheme for this visit had emerged.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I could spend months here, actually, picking out small details. What I was going for in this visit, instead, was to try and capture the cyclopean scale of things.

Everything on this campus is truly huge.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This shot is the opposite POV to the first one in today’s post, and the concrete structure with the trackway on top of it is the very corridor that I was shooting within in shots 2,3,4, and 5.

Embedded below is a detail crop from this photo, which captures an image of the site plan map for Carrie Furnace that the Rivers of Steel people have displayed for perusal.

Back tomorrow with more.

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