Archive for the ‘Astoria’ Category
consuming fright
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator is a bit behind on the old schedule today, so a single image of a Q104 bus making its way through Astoria is on offer. Back tomorrow with more of the usual folderol.
“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.
lambent nimbuses
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Since I’m all vaxxed up, riding the subways is something I can do again. I’ve been seriously pursuing an “iconic” shot of the IRT Flushing Line entering Queens Plaza with the sun setting behind it. The shot above isn’t it, rather it’s part of a series of similar shots which I’m going to keep on cracking away at until I get the magic one. One of the features which drew me into adopting the new camera – Canon EOS R6 – was a fairly revolutionary set of autofocus technologies baked into the thing. Saying that, during the pandemic months, I didn’t use “face and eye” or “subject tracking” at all since almost everything I was pointing the lens at was static.
Subject tracking, which is what I’m using while pursuing my “iconic” shot, allows me to tell the camera to focus on a certain thing and then the electronics onboard will follow that object through the frame while constantly adjusting focus as it moves. It also looks for human faces in frame and ensures they are in focus as well. There’s a lot of nuance to how this works, which has been fun to learn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve always considered the MTA Subway system to be an excellent workshop for photographers to figure their devices out. You’ve got all of these “worst case scenarios” going on. Shiny metallic objects moving at a decent clip through badly lit spaces, lots of harsh contrast, random behavioral offerings from the ridership.
Something I started doing a few years ago involves walking somewhere distant and then hopping on the train to get back home. That divides my photowalk time up and keeps things interesting. On the particular night these shots were gathered, I had scuttled over to LIC and visited Dutch Kills and then jumped onto the 7 at Hunters Point Avenue pursuing a connection to the Astoria line trains at Queens Plaza.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Subsequently, last week I left the house and my answer to Our Lady of the Pentacle’s query as to where I was heading towards was “I’m feeling lazy so I’m just going to go ride the elevated subways for a bit and take some pics.”
The only issue I can report to y’all about the new autofocus system is that I am tending to overshoot while using it. I’ll burst out fifty shots of a train entering or leaving the station when all I need is one. That slows me down on the developing side of the operation, since I’ve got to pick just one.
Saying that, it’s bloody fantastic to be able to use the Transit System again. Now, if I only had some place to go…
“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.
particularly alien
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was quite an afternoon for a long walk, Sunday the 25th of April was, here amongst the rolling hills of Astoria. Speaking of, 21st Avenue at 43rd street seems to be the highest “natural” prominence on the north side of the neighborhood. Someday, I’d love to see a 3D topographical map of Astoria sometime. It’s fairly flat, yes, but there’s a series of shallow hill and valley formations encountered after crossing Astoria Blvd. while heading north. I like to imagine that they’re ridges of mud and stone deposited hydrologically in some unrecorded era of yore. I’ve never seen this elevation change between 20th Avenue and Astoria Blvd. described on a map, but there has to be a 40-50 foot differential.
That’s Astoria’s Luyster Creek pictured above. It’s also sporadically described in maps. A friend of mine who is an expert in the cartographic arts has been looking into the subject of this particular waterway for me, which has been immensely helpful.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After scuttling from HQ on the other side of the neighborhood, a humble narrator found himself next wandering about at Hells Gate nearby Astoria Park. For once, I was lucky enough to get there just as a train was passing over the eponymous bridge spanning this, the Hells Gate section of the East River.
Based on the reactions of passerby, my appearance must be shocking. Old ladies were clutching at their pearls, children cried, dogs growled. I saw a group of older Hellenic men preparing torches.
One decided to get out of the area quickly. The Greeks invented “peasant mob chases monster with torches” along with most other things.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While escaping the attentions of the mob, one noticed this particularly weathered fire alarm box mounted on a pole. The graffiti would indicate that this is a silent alarm… get it? Omertà… silence…
I have fun.
“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.
coloured mitres
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Since one has completed his vaccinations against the Covid scourge, very little dust has had a chance to settle upon a humble narrator. I’ve caroused in bars, ridden subways and ferries, gone places, done things. Seemingly, I’ve developed a truly calloused attitude towards other people’s stupidity and anti-social tendencies. You don’t want to get vaccinated because you heard somebody got sick from it in California, huh? Well, it was nice knowing you, and you should probably have a conversation with your Doctor. “I shit you not” when saying that I personally witnessed a negotiation and transaction take place for a counterfeit vaccination card recently. It was just so dumb. This is how Zombie movies start, and this is what the world has looked like to me for the last year and change.
Remember when half of your third grade class died of Rubella? How about when little Timmy down the block ended up in the iron lung? The time you lost your sister to Smallpox? Tuberculosis took your Mom? Measles? Whooping cough? Scarlet Fever? Exactly. Go get your shot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The only way out of dealing with all of this is clearly pursuing my dream of birthing a race of Atomic Supermen, but my neighborhood in Astoria isn’t zoned for “Mad Science.” NYC is quite strict on this subject, and it’s overseen by the same City Hall department that handles restaurant inspections for some reason. There’s several properties in the South Bronx which are promising for the endeavor, but negotiating the lease has been a chore. There’s a great location that already has Tesla coils and lightning gathering kites installed, but $55 per square foot is highway robbery for industrial space.
Of course, one of the tasks I’m going to assign my army of Atomic Supermen is going to be literal “highway robbery,” but start-ups need to worry about pissing away their initial capitalization on fancy offices and other gimmicks. The only thing other than gestation tubes and a DNA sequencer I’m going to be buying for the factory will be a big fan, one that turns slowly, and will be positioned in front of a bright light that cycles through primary colors in my surprisingly wet and dark Atomic Superman factory. Also, there’s going to be chains hanging down from the roof that have no true purpose.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back in Astoria, yet another FDNY operation drew my attentions. It seems that two automobile drivers caused a low speed collision. One of the drivers, I’m told, demanded that 911 be called and an EMS Ambulance crew arrived to assess and handle the situation. Nobody was loaded onto a stretcher or anything, so it’s fairly obvious that the driver was hoping for the cops to show up rather than the Fire Department when they called 911.
Everybody loves Firemen and Fireladies and Firenonbinarynongenderconforming people. Nobody wants to defund the Fire Department. Personally, I’ve always wanted to be there when one of those cinematic style Cop vs. Fireman fights break out, but no luck.
“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.
quasihexagonal pedestals
Wednesday?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Fragility and weakness plague a humble narrator, and often it feels as if my bones could shatter or even begin to powderize if somebody plays their music too loudly around me. I feel the pressure of sunlight, and a stiff breeze just might be enough to end it all. My team of Doctors shore me up with a raft of medications, but all I can do is just keep walking. Endeavor found me visiting Astoria’s Luyster Creek several times last month in preparation of a shoreline cleanup effort which I helped a bunch of the neighbors to organize. You can read about all that here.
Special thanks are offered to the NYC DEP for sending us a dumpster to collect the trash and litter, and especially for bundling it into their organizational trash handling system. Additionally, kudos to the thirty or so volunteers who got sweaty and dirty doing the job. Personally, I somehow survived leaving the clean room bubble back here at HQ.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That toe I broke in 2019 has never been the same, so my troubadour tales of woe and infirmity begin where the left foot touches the ground. Like the doom squirrel of Norse Myth that climbs up and down Yggdrasil the World Tree, my list of maladies and complaints shift about and are contingent to different times of day. Luckily, pooping and peeing hasn’t been affected by my general physical decline, but I’m sure that’s coming next. Adult diapers, weird looking orthopedic shoes, weird ointment smells… it’s all just around the corner, I fear. Over the years, I’ve not treated my physical carriage well, and burnt the candle at both ends. My grandmother warned me about this.
My plan for getting out of this trap involves “mad science” and creating a younger clone body which I can transfer myself into. Since I’ve never been much of a “specimen,” I’m hopeful that my mad sciencing can find a method that would allow me to transfer my consciousness into a more robust body. At the very least, I’d like to be a couple of inches taller, since I currently have to stand on a step stool to change light bulbs. When your bones have the consistency of wet Papier-mâché it’s a good idea to avoid ladders.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Frankenstein Monster’s name was Adam. Adam Frankenstein sounds pretty Brooklyn Jewish to me, it’s the name of a Tax Professional or a Bond Trader from Midwood to my ears. The Waxman monster, should my plans for immortality not work out in some ironically comical fashion, would choose its own name since it’s going to have to live with it for a while. The awful truth of my plan, however, is that there would be two of me for a bit. This is the problem with cloning yourself and then backing your brain up into the new model. I’d continue on in painful degeneracy and eventually collapse into the inevitable pile of fecund jellies, while the new man would go striding into the 21st century. I’m such an asshole that I’d look at me (clone me looking at regular me, that is) and say “he had his chance, my turn” and move on. I hope clone me would at least hose down the decaying snot that used to be regular me before somebody slipped on it.
I wonder if I could find a way to give the clone me extra thumbs on the anterior side of the hands. I’d also like to re-examine the set up of the calfs and feet, and introduce some Kangaroo genetics into that area. A bit of armoring for the spine would be nice, as would a far better set of teeth than the ones I got. Hey… if you’re mad sciencing yourself a new body, might as well try to improve on what Mother Nature gave you.
“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 