Archive for the ‘Photowalks’ Category
something monstrous
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Gas Stations, as previously mentioned, are sort of grabbing my attentions when I’m out with the camera lately. Partially, it’s because I have a new camera I’m still getting used to, one which offers a tremendous advantage in terms of “dynamic range” over my old one. Difficult subject matter like a gas station at night is precisely the sort of thing I’m looking for when out scuttling in the night. Also, they look cool, and last year I didn’t have any in my library when a well known stock photo agency put out the call for images of them.
The Mobil station pictured above is found on Astoria Blvd. South, at 44th street.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Astoria Blvd. was recently paid some attention by a humble narrator, in my role as the Transportation Committee Co-Chair of Community Board 1. Specifically, the area I inspected and photographed in minute detail was the stretch of Astoria Blvd. between 33rd and 49th streets. There’s a whole lot of stuff that I encountered which confirms that the last time anyone took a holistic look at this stretch was in the 1960’s.
This subject is something which the Committee voted to spend some of our organizational time on, and hopefully we can find ways to improve road conditions for all users of this particular stretch in the ancient village. There’s entire 2-3 block long stretches, such as the pedestrian bridge between 46th and 49th streets on Astoria Blvd. South, where there aren’t even functioning street lights. Grrrr.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another Gas Station, this one found on Astoria Blvd. South and 31st street. These little puddles of light and saturated color just fascinate me at the moment. Expect more loving shots of them in the next few months. Hey… it’s wintertime during a pandemic.
Back next week with something different, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, December 14th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
hitherto veiled
Flippity floopity, it’s Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the subjects which I found impossible to photograph (at night) with my old camera were gas stations. The problem wasn’t with technique, instead it was the limitations of “dynamic range” involving the camera’s sensor. The new camera captures a LOT more information than the older model does, and that means that I’ve been able to capture these little islands of bright color and light. Why, you might ask, am I finding myself motivated towards such activity?
Have you noticed that all the gas stations are beginning to disappear? Same thing with the supermarkets, or any other large lot business? What’s up with that, you ask? These property lots, occupied by businesses (or businesses like them) which have operated on this land in one form or another since the 1940’s or 50’s, are highly sought out and desired as development sites by the jackals and coprophages of the real estate industrial complex.
It won’t be Donald Trump’s self described best friend Larry Silverstein who buys this gas station, instead it will be somebody significantly further down the food chain who does. Have to keep prices low, which won’t happen if the seller realizes the president of REBNY (Real Estate Board of New York) and owner of the World Trade Center is the buyer.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ever wonder why it is that the real estate people are such ardent supporters of bike lanes, ride share services, the elimination of street parking, and so on? It ain’t because they’re greenies, I’ll tell you that. It’s because NYC has a Planning Dept. requirement that demands they build space for resident parking in new development. Getting rid of everybody else’s parking makes their new development more valuable. Have to drive to Nassau County to fill up your gas tank? Well, remember the Borough Motto of Queens – Welcome to Queens, now go fuck yourself.
Think that sounds paranoid? Stare into a real estate developer’s eyes, and the only thing staring back at you from the depths of their ocular cavities will be an avaricious hunger. There’s a few ideas moving through the political world right now that are labeled as being “progressive.” Given that most think the word “progressive” means “liberal,” I feel obliged to remind others that Robert Moses referred to himself as a progressive. He “progressed” tens of thousands out of their homes to build his highways. See that gas station above? Wait until it’s “mandatory inclusionary housed” or “affordable housed” out of existence. The fact that it’s literally one block from Newtown Creek does not matter.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wandering, ever wandering, that’s me. It’s best this way. Alone, in the cold night, scuttling about with a camera. Rattling along the fences of cemeteries and highways, poking the lens through brambles and barbed wire, one has always been and must always remain an Outsider. Reflective surfaces must be avoided at all cost, lest I spy the monster that others run away from.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, December 7th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
darkly probable
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last shot of that Eagle Electric building in Queens Plaza which was described in yesterday’s post, with an IRT Flushing line 7 train navigating the trackways of the elevated steel high above the street behind it. As a note, if you want to receive a series of puzzled or worried looks from passerby, set up a tripod in Queens Plaza at night.
It really grabs people’s attention, the camera and tripod. Passing citizenry didn’t seem to focus on the guy taking a poop in the plantings alongside the bridge just down the block, but me they notice. “What are you taking pictures of” I get asked regularly. I point in the direction of whatever the camera is pointed at and say “that.” “Why” is usually the next question. I ask myself this all the time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Cannot explain the process, even to myself. Sometimes there’s a plan – get a shot of this or that from here or from there. Try to tell the story with a single static image. Try to get that image “accurate” to what it looked like with the naked eye, or just outside of naked eye range with entering the “uncanny valley.”
There’s so many things to worry about, beyond the dozen or so intricate camera settings and using the right gear. Look over your shoulder constantly, keep an eye out for fast moving cars, trucks, bicycles. Watch out for the focused attentions of malign members of the street community as well. Get your shot, move out. It’s not just point and shoot at night, there’s a whole deal you have to sweat and worry about.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the landmarked Bank of Manhattan building, at Queens Plaza, in the foreground of the shot above. Formerly the tallest building in Queens, these days it’s a dwarf compared to its neighbors. Directly behind it is the still under construction Durst Organization’s new residential tower, a 755 foot tall building they call Queens Plaza Park or “SVEN,” which is a product of the 2001 rezoning of LIC. Gargantuan, I’m told the new building will have an infinity pool on its roof. “I would love to be able to swim in Queens Plaza,” nobody has ever said.
The Bank of Manhattan building, alternatively, is a 1927 11 story building with a 3 story clock tower at its apex. The Bank of Manhattan later rebranded itself as Chase, and the building was occupied by that company until 1984 when the building was sold.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, November 9th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
drowsily discussed
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another night, another walk around Western Queens, in this case – the western side of Queens Plaza. Recently announced, a new real estate development project will see the old Eagle Electric factory on 23rd street demolished and replaced by what promises to be another uninspiring glass rhombus. The plan is for this to be office space. Read the room, guys. Pandemic, much?
Regardless of the avarice and intent of the carpetbaggers, one nevertheless decided to visit the spot and record the scene for posterity or whatever.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I got lucky, inasmuch as having just set up the tripod for a longish exposure, the journey of two 7 line IRT Flushing subway trains coincided on the elevated steel which carries them to and from Queens Plaza. I wonder what kind of sound proofing that new office building they’re going to replace the Eagle Electric factory with is going to require. This passage was and is LOUD. Like hear it through your headphones while you’re listening to the Ramones LOUD. Like completely drowning out the Ramones kind of loud. Loud.
Eagle Electric, btw, was founded in 1920 by two brothers from the Ludwig family (Louis and Phillip) and their kids inherited and held the business for much of the 20th century. Eagle manufactured switches, sockets, and other electrical ephemera in Long Island City until the 1980’s. Eagle began vacating and selling off its LIC premises in 1980, and in the year 2000 the company was sold off to a conglomerate called Cooper Wiring Devices. In 2012, Cooper Wiring was purchased by another outfit called the Eaton Corporation and the Eagle line of products and patents is now marketed under their branding. Eagle Electric was famous for a huge neon sign adorning the roof of this building, which is also found right alongside the Queensboro Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A crew of street artist/graffiti writers penetrated into the building in the last year or two, and adorned nearly every window pane with colorful tags. Directly across the street is the former Silvercup bakery, whose own neon signage still persists. The old bakery is now a movie studio and production offices complex.
I’ve long been fascinated with the garish illumination of this corner, with colorful light scattering about from a thousand different sources.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, November 9th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
leer evilly
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Prior to writing this post, a humble narrator trimmed his fingernails. It made me curious, so after a bit of investigation it turns out that your fingernails (which grow at a far more rapid rate than toe nails, according to medical science) advance from the cuticle at an average rate of some 0.14 inches a month. A quick bit of calculation thereby reveals that I’ve likely grown and discarded just under seven and half feet of fingernail over the five and change decades I’ve been alive. It also seems that nail clippings can serve as important biometric markers and a laboratory analysis of them can help to determine several things about your diet, current homeostasis, overall metabolism, and identifying any particular poison which you might be environmentally accumulating.
What can I tell you, I’m the curious type. Ever wonder about how many yards of hair you’ve chopped off over the years? Gallons of piss, pounds of poop, dollops of snot? I have. These are the sort of subjects I’ll often explore when walking the camera around in the dead of night.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Biologic metrics are fascinating. Of late, I’ve been obsessed with the step counter app on my phone, which has supplied me with a series of benchmarks for how far and fast I’m moving about. On the particular night which these shots were gathered, for instance, in a roughly three hour interval, some 10,000 individual steps were recorded. That equates to about 4.7 miles, meaning I was scuttling along at roughly 1.5 miles per hour. That’s half of what’s considered to be average human walking speed, but don’t forget that I had to keep on stopping to obsessively capture pictures of the visual splendors presented by Western Queens.
This was one of my “short walks” incidentally, which I commit to at least twice a week. Long walks are 10-15 miles and take all damn night, also twice a week. I’ve got a very tidy “every other day kind of thing” going on these days.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Biometrics actually underlie a lot of the world, if you notice the details. There’s a universe of calculation that goes into the rise and run of staircases, for instance. Average servings in a restaurant, the size and shape of drinking glasses, even the amount of space allotted to an individual rider on the subway is calculated (MTA has told me that it’s one square horizontal meter, which is projected upwards as a two cubic meter box). All of these calculations are regionally specific, incidentally. European and American designers of public space have historically had to compensate for higher average body weights and size than their counterparts in South and East Asia. If you wear jeans with a waist size over 34 inches, I’m told you’re going to have a hard time buying clothes in Japan or Viet Nam.
I wish I had been saving all of those nail clippings over the years, just to be prepared for any possibility of a Ragnarok situation involving flooding, as I’d have a personal Naglfar to float away from trouble.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, November 9th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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 