Archive for the ‘birds’ Category
any time
Just a single shot in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As is occasionally the case, a humble narrator needs to take a short break. This week, single images will greet you, as is the case with the one above depicting a Night Heron – a critter which I encountered on North Brother Island a few years ago.
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unknown respondent
Sludge Boats, baby, Sludge Boats.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These shots are actually from the height of that shoulder injury period last month, and represent a desperate desire one acted upon to “shake it off” by indulging in a bit of exercise. The weather was less than cooperative from a light point of view, and the affected limb was less than pleased at the rest of my body moving around, so I decided that since I was in the “hell of pain” I’d simply head over to Hells Gate and indulge the horror.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily for my diversion starved and somewhat depressed state of mind, the MV Red Hook was observed while debarking from the Wards Island dewatering facility across the river. Wards Island is the end point for the sewage sludge process, which is operated by the NYC DEP. Centrifugal machines are fed the material, which has the consistency of syrup or warm honey at the end of the thickening process at the various neighborhood sewer plants, which is carried here by the DEP’s fleet of “Honey” or Sludge boats. The dewatered material is compressed into “cakes” and sold for use as fertilizer on non food crops such as cotton and Christmas Trees.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
MV Red Hook is one of NYC’s older generation of Sludge Boats, although it’s the newest of its type – having come online in 2012. The newer class of Sludge Boats has been discussed here at Newtown Pentacle before.
from NYC.gov
The Red Hook sludge vessel was built over a three-year period in Brownsville, Texas by Keppel AmFELS. Once completed, it took seven days to make its way to New York City, arriving on November 19, 2008. The vessel has recently completed post-delivery dry-dock inspections and adjustments at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and is ready for service. Each six-person crew consists of a captain, chief engineer, assistant engineer, mate and two mariners. Crews work a 40-hour week divided into 14, 13, and 13 hour shifts. The Red Hook is slightly over 350 feet long, about 53 feet wide, with a depth of slightly over 21 feet. It has eight storage tanks with 150,000 cubic foot capacity equivalent to 1.2 million gallons. The Red Hook weighs over 2,098 long tons and is designed to travel at 12.75 knots or approximately 15 miles per hour. On a typical week, each vessel makes 14 round trips and visits eight wastewater treatment plants.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All of the DEP’s honey boats will find themselves heading to or from Wards Island periodically, after making their rounds at one of the City’s 14 sewer plants. Hells Gate is a great place to spot them, and Shore Road along Astoria Park is a great place to observe Hells Gate.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are many who would agree with me, in my assertion that the view from Shore Road rocks.
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abundant melancholy
Yo, you seeing what I’m seeing?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shot above is representative of how such a scene would appear to a raccoon, a seal, a dolphin or just about any whale. It’s also likely how it appears to a human being who suffers from a condition called Achromatopsia (which there are several different forms of, some congenital and others acquired). Achromatopsia is the lack of any color vision whatsoever, with the entire visual experience of those afflicted rendered in shades of gray. While this can be considered “quite goth” and is somehow poetic – it’s a pretty serious vision disease.
“Normal” human eyes are meant to perceive color. The typical human eye can discern around one million colors, whereas the eye of an Achromatopsiac can only see about a hundred shades of gray.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The neurologist Oliver Sachs once pointed out that whereas there’s a frequency of reflected light which humans will agree upon as being “red,” or “blue,” there is no way to test whether or not we are all actually seeing the exact same thing. Is my “coca cola” red your “coca cola” or is it a little more “fire engine” or “cherry”?
Odds are they’re not, as we aren’t really “seeing” anything. The brain is creating the things we see based on the limited amount of the raw photonic data, as collected by the eyes, which it decides to process. You generally don’t notice how much dust there is in the air unless a shaft of sunlight illuminates, it causing the brain to “notice” the anomaly and render it visually. Essentially, brains compress collected light into a construct which jibes with what the other senses are telling it.
Is that an image of a cormorant? Nope, it’s a capture of the light which was bouncing around one day when a cormorant swam by, which our brains process and interpret using a chemical database of prior observations called memories. Looks like a cormorant, though.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A lot of the information passing through the optic nerve is actually jettisoned by the brain. We don’t perceive the higher and lower frequencies of light – infrared or ultraviolet. Some critters have traded the ability to see the mid range entirely to focus on these spectrums, like the bee. Invisible light isn’t just a song from Sting’s old band “The Police” and it’s always been something a humble narrator is intensely curious about.
There are specialist cameras out there – security and nighttime cameras use a set of near infrared LED emitters to pump out a bright stream of IR light which these cameras can visualize and record. There’s also UV and IR film stocks, as well as esoteric lens filters and all sorts of DIY equipment you can use for the task of seeing the unseeable. Long have I had my eye on a camera kit offered by Nikon which is intended for the use of Police forensics teams, as said device can operate in both IR and UV to aid in the capture of splattered bodily fluids at crime scenes. Unfortunately, the unit is quite expensive and you need to flash credentials when purchasing it.
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be fair
I love to photograph, So mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Today, it’s all about the yellows. The particular wavelength and angle of light emanating from the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself is ugly at this time of year, and a certain responsibility is felt to attempt to brighten things up. Pictured above is one of the groundling burrowers with the glowing red eyes who inhabit the Roman Catholic polyandrion called Calvary Cemetery, here in LIC.
Word has it that their role is to carry messages between those who exist above and below the till, and that the daily challenge is to try and avoid the multitudes of Hawks, Cats, and other predators who desire the rending of their flesh during the carrying out of their task.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last summer in Astoria, we had what seemed like a record crop of Sunflowers, which led to great rejoicing in the apiaries of Western Queens. I’ve mentioned a certain paranoia – carried over from childhood – regarding sunflowers and the buzzing harvesters which infest them, in the past. Regardless, the stalwart photographer must pursue his craft, and the fancies or terrors of infancy are best left on the back shelf.
Still, sunflowers freak me out.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Dead things abound in Western Queens, and not all of them are found below the soil of the so called cemetery belt. This poor little bastard counted its last minutes on a sidewalk in Queens. Often, one fears that this is the sort of posture one such as myself will be displaying when discovered by passerby.
Life a leaf, you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pineapples, in some abundance, observed at an Astoria fruit stand.
The most amazing part of our culture, in my opinion, is that after reading this post – in the middle of January – you can go out into the cold, and by writhing through the atmosphere for just a few blocks find tropical cultivars on sale. It will not be difficult for you to find mangoes, strawberries, pineapples – in January. That is simply amazing, when you get down to it, and it’s a reminder that despite the climactic challenges you’ll encounter – you live in the financial capital of a nuclear armed superpower which enjoys the actual highest standard of living ever known and that other nations and cultures send us regular tribute.
In many ways, we are living in the modern equivalent of late Republic Rome.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the subject of living in an analog for Rome (prior to the First Triumverate, natch), you can be reasonably assured of the presence of the fire fighters should sudden immolation occur. FDNY’s trade dress, as mentioned in yesterday’s post, always brightens things up. The only times that the phrase “everything is going to be alright” escapes my lips is when FDNY shows up – they’re our army of municipal super heroes, after all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The darkness of winter gives the Vampire community of Western Queens vast regency. As opined in the past, the army of Strigoi shuns entry into Astoria due to vast numbers of South and Central European ethnicities resident hereabouts. My neighbor Mario prefers to use high visibility paint on his cruciform wards, because “safety first.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s down on the western section of the Sunnyside Yards that you really need to be carrying the garlic in LIC. The area is infested with the Nosferatu in the Hunters Point Avenue section nearby the LIRR. It’s a big part of the reasoning behind the stout fences protecting the 7 train as it rises from the tunneled depths. You probably don’t want to accept the fact, I know, but there you go.
Don’t get me started on the Witch Cult. Vampires are merely rabid dogs inhabiting the shadowed corners of our world, whereas the worshippers of Hecate and the Magna Mater are hidden amongst us and actively working… I’ve probably said too much already.
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indubitably again
Wake up, sleepyhead.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s a brand new year, and we’ve all got a lot to get done. Let’s get to it! You’ll probably want to make some coffee first.
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