Archive for the ‘Photowalk’ Category
dream swamp
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Progeny of an aforementioned early morning trek recently enacted across Long Island City from Astoria, these shots depict a February sunrise at certain points of land which adjoin the notorious Newtown Creek.
Driven by a period of certain insomniac ideations, a seasonal affliction whose annual appointment and arrival is scheduled between the months of December and March, the effects of this inability to sleep are are felt on both financial and interpersonal fronts. The good news is that I get a LOT of work done.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Possessing me for much of this year has been the job of updating and retooling of my “Magic Lantern” show, a slideshow presentation which describes and details the various noteworthy features and remarkable history of this loquacious cataract forming the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens, a 3.8 mile long industrial canal known as the Newtown Creek.
The modern version is designed with HD television and computer screens in mind (prior versions were designed for projection), and has been complied at a ridiculous resolution (suitable for Blu-Ray, actually). The master file is a tad under two hours long, and includes literally every tributary, inlet, cove, rivet, and screw found along the banks of Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The “production model” comes in at just over 45 minutes, and will be the version presented this Friday at Observatory. It is still a ludicrously detailed accounting of the place, which is limited to a short geospatial distance from the Creek’s bulkheads. The long version examines a much larger area, but that’s something I’m not able to speak freely about yet.
I’d love it if you can join us at Observatory this Friday.
The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show- presented by the Obscura Society NYC- at Observatory, on February the 15th- ThisFriday.
Click here or the image below for more information and tickets.
dream existence
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Isolated from anything that truly matters, and vastly unprepared for that inevitable day when the lights go out and civilization collapses, your humble narrator nevertheless finds himself ruinously ill informed about things both ubiquitous and consequential.
Wandering about in a snow storm, wonderings about something as simple as road salt began to fill my mind as I watched it being flung around as a prophylactic against ice.
from wikipedia
Halite occurs in vast beds of sedimentary evaporite minerals that result from the drying up of enclosed lakes, playas, and seas. Salt beds may be hundreds of meters thick and underlie broad areas. In the United States and Canada extensive underground beds extend from the Appalachian basin of western New York through parts of Ontario and under much of the Michigan Basin. Other deposits are in Ohio, Kansas, New Mexico, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. The Khewra salt mine is a massive deposit of halite near Islamabad, Pakistan. In the United Kingdom there are three mines; the largest of these is at Winsford in Cheshire producing half a million tonnes on average in six months.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The side of me which hangs around Newtown Creek and the environmental crowd focuses on the effect that the saline rich waste water will have as it discharges from Combined Sewer Outfalls along the harbor into the already brackish waters of NY Harbor. Melt water, on a citywide basis, provides billions of gallons of wastewater which carry the tonnage of salt into the water- producing what is known as “salt shock.”
How many tons of dissolved salt does this water carry, and how does that affect both the physical geology of the harbor and the estuarine life contained within?
from saltinstitute.org
Will we run out of salt?
Never. Salt is the most common and readily available nonmetallic mineral in the world; it is so abundant, accurate estimates of salt reserves are unavailable. In the United States there are an estimated 55 trillion metric tons. Since the world uses 240 million tons of salt a year, U.S. reserves alone could sustain our needs for 100,000 years. And some of that usage is naturally recycled after use. The enormity of the Earth’s underground salt deposits, combined with the saline vastness of the Earth’s oceans makes the supply of salt inexhaustible.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above is the titan Atlantic Salt facility in Staten Island, one of many such bulk storage depots which stockpile the stuff for weather emergencies. Realization that I have no real idea what salt is (other than its purely chemical makeup), how it might be quarried, and what the difference is between table and road salt forced me to begin reading up on the subject.
A similar intellectual journey involving honey grasped me several years ago, it should be mentioned.
from wikipedia
Refined salt, which is most widely used presently, is mainly sodium chloride. Food grade salt accounts for only a small part of salt production in industrialized countries (3 percent in Europe) although worldwide, food uses account for 17.5 percent of salt production. The majority is sold for industrial use. Salt has great commercial value because it is a necessary ingredient in many manufacturing processes. A few common examples include: the production of pulp and paper, setting dyes in textiles and fabrics, and the making of soaps and detergents.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The question, for me, isn’t “how do you acquire salt?”.
It’s how do you acquire salt in industrial quantities? The honey question led me down a rabbit hole which exposed a complicated story of international trade, prehistoric industrial development, and the realities of how fragile the agricultural system actually is. Salt is another ancient industry, and was a substance worth more than its weight in gold during Roman times.
According to Roman Historian Pliny the Elder, the soldiers of the Republic were originally paid in salt, which is where the term “Salary” was coined (or Coine’d).
from wikipedia
Prior to the advent of the internal combustion engine and earth moving equipment, mining salt was one of the most expensive and dangerous of operations. While salt is now plentiful, before the Industrial Revolution salt was difficult to come by, and salt mining was often done by slave or prison labor. In ancient Rome, salt on the table was a mark of a rich patron (and those who sat nearer the host were above the salt, and those less favored were “below the salt”). Roman prisoners were given the task of salt mining, and life expectancy among those so sentenced was low.
Also:
Remember that event in the fall which got cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy?
The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show- presented by the Obscura Society NYC- is back on at Observatory, on February the 15th- ThisFriday.
Click here or the image below for more information and tickets.
cursed season
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
During the snow storm on Friday, Our Lady of the Pentacle indicated that she had become a bit peckish and desired a meal. Unfortunately for us, many of the restaurants here in Astoria had wisely shuttered their doors early.
Accordingly, we set off across the frozen waste to find acceptable comestibles. Naturally, one brought a camera along with him.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This will be a week of darkness explored, here at your Newtown Pentacle.
As mentioned in an earlier post, an effort to betray normal sensibility and habit is underway, one of which is to shoot during the optimal hours of diurnal light. Nocturnal Astoria was fairly deserted, at least by Astoria standards, and an eerie pall of quiet hung about the place- punctuated only by the sound of plows and salt spreaders and the occasional exhalations of Spaniard revelry.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Small groups picked their way through the snow, as an obscuring miasma of wind blown ice particles occluded vision. It was not particularly cold, oddly enough, just windy. Road salt lent an oddly oceanic scent to the air, which mingled with those foul humours rising up from the subterranean sewage tunnels underlying the street.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A fine icy powder as it fell, the snow hardly interfered with my lens, as it did not cling to the glass. In the end, it was the always reliable Politos Pizza on Broadway just off Steinway which satisfied the gastronomic urges of Our Lady and myself. An alcoholic drink was procured next door at the venerable Cronin and Phelan pub for dessert.
At only ten at night, the barkeep announced last call, an indication that the storm was growing worse- for if a NYC Irish bar is closing up early…
Also:
Remember that event in the fall which got cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy?
The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show- presented by the Obscura Society NYC- is back on at Observatory, on February the 15th- This Friday.
Click here or the image below for more information and tickets.
Project Firebox 58
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The intention, as it were, behind this shot was to force myself into working with a shallow depth of field.
Shocking tastes and shooting habits of mine highlight a certain passion for hyperfocal infinity, with a nearly fatal level of sharpness rendered in even the smallest of background details. If you ever click through to the larger incarnations of the photos presented here, you’ll witness this predilection of mine in abundant attendance. Committed for the moment to “doing a Costanza“ and enacting exactly the opposite of what normal instinct would offer am I.
It doesn’t live on the quietest corner in Astoria, at 31st Street and 23rd Avenue but stands tall nevertheless, a scarlet sentry recorded at a yawning aperture with obsequiously and quite squamous bokeh.
Also:
Remember that event in the fall which got cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy?
The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show- presented by the Obscura Society NYC- is back on at Observatory, on February the 15th- Next Friday.
Click here or the image below for more information and tickets.
anxious band
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I keep coming up empty at Calvary lately. Today’s examination of the great polyandrion of the megalopolis centers around an odd monument of somewhat ambiguous vintage. It likely dates back to the time of the Civil War, give or take ten years on either side. The face of the piece is in rather bad shape, exhibiting a partnership between natural weathering and acid rain coupled with what would appear to be impact damage.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An attempt to describe the inscription:
I read the first grouping as:
“In Memory of Jeanne Du– obscured text is possibly a P and a U- Epan in Pau FR– obscured text is likely ANCE or France.
There is a Pau in France, so that means she was likely French!
The stone follows:
“On the– obscured text is possibly 14th- of November, 18- X5, – obscured text is possibly DIED- in the City of New York, November 10 18- X5.”
“In memory of– obscured text”
“John P. Ferr– obscured text is possibly an E. Born in– obscured text is likely France. Died Jan – obscured text is possibly an 18 or 28- – obscured text is likely 1876. Aged– obscured text likely 73 or 78- Years.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All attempts at searching for the couple, using variations of Jeanne D’s name likely for someone of her ancestry and variations of the gentleman’s name, failed. This is deucedly odd, as Calvary normally gives up her secrets to me. The monument is remarkable for the double portrait, incidentally, which is a signifier of social standing and material wealth. I will continue to research this spot, which is nearby the Connell monument recently discussed at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
Also:
Remember that event in the fall which got cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy?
The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show presented by the Obscura Society NYC is back on at Observatory.
Click here or the image below for more information and tickets.
The Newtown Pentacle 