Kicking dirt at West End Elliot Overlook
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After an interminable interval, Our Lady of the Pentacle had finally boarded a flight, from the UK, and was on her way back home via the Pittsburgh International AirPort.
Me? I had time to kill while anxiously waiting to pick her up from that facility, and had positioned myself in a photogenic spot to pass the time until that joyous moment when a text arrived saying ‘I’ve landed.’
I picked the West End Elliot Overlook Park to go kick dirt, partially because it’s about a five minute drive to a highway onramp which would then send me hurtling in the direction of Our Lady in the automobile.
About a 25 minute drive at this time of day, more or less, from this spot to the airport. Perfect.
The tripod was set up, my lens cleaned of dust, and I got busy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This little outing of mine occurred just before sunset, and the Overlook is a great place to shoot ‘urban landscape’ for both sunrise and sunset. A city park, there’s a parking lot with a port-a-potty installed in it, and there’s always some people there. Some picnic people were observed, a few pot smokers, others sipping hooch from a bottle hidden in a paper bag. Lots of dog walkers, too. Nice quiet and cool spot, this.
There was maritime traffic down on the ‘Mon,’ with a Towboat towing an enormous raft of what looked like twenty empty barges under the Fort Pitt Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Ronald D. Koontz Towboat. Marinetraffic.com offers this page about the vessel, which hides what you’d like to see behind a paywall that renders the formerly great functionality of their site moot. Cory Doctorow has coined the term ‘enshittification’ to describe what’s going on with the internet these days, and I’m in agreement.
The future has turned out to really suck, hasn’t it?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself’s emanations faded, I was keeping myself busy. Panoramas, long exposures, the whole quiver.
If you’d like to see a full sized version of the panorama image above, click here for its Flickr page and zoom in. Go to town. Carnival!
The two bridges in the shot are the Fort Duquesne Bridge over the Allegheny River on the left, and the Fort Pitt Bridge over the Monongahela River on the right.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I kept checking my phone for the anxiously awaited text that Our Lady had landed at the airport. In the meantime, I kept shooting.
It’s been a long time since I did any ‘night stuff.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s West End Bridge over the Ohio River, which is frequently mentioned here. I’ll often walk over that span on one of my scuttles, after taking the T light Rail to Pittsburgh’s North Side from HQ.
Back tomorrow with more.
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The Newtown Pentacle 
That panoramic view of the Golden Triangle and the “three rivers” and all that “beyond” is really something, Mitch! I just kept toggling left and right to take it all in — with all that high ground looming in the background. Wow!
furiek
October 29, 2025 at 1:47 am