Archive for the ‘Queens Plaza’ Category
recalled dreams
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A recent scuttle found me soiling the sidewalks outside of Aviation High School, painting the sidewalks with the corruption permanently stuck to the soles of my shoes. One is so incredibly aberrant that area grocery stores have established rules about allowing me near the Fresh Produce or Dairy aisles, as any occupation of such spaces on my part causes spoilage. Old ladies clutch at their purses, children begin to cry, birds flock into the sky, and cats hiss when I approach. It would not surprise one if the sidewalk spot I was standing upon while shooting the plane pictured above needs to be replaced. My presence causes concrete to rot, steel to rust, and lumber gets reduced down to a corrupted pulp. I once wilted a flower by staring at it. Ask anyone, I’m horrible.
The damning realization that I actually enjoyed the solitude of the Pandemic is currently messing with me. I always said that what this City needs is a good plague, and my wish came true. Thereby, COVID is all my fault.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m tired. Tired of arguing. Tired of listening to paranoid conspiracy theories. I’m tired of virtue signaling, tired of public rhetoric that is abandoned in private, and tired of those who project the “shiny happy people” trope. I’m also tired of the perennially angry, the unfocused, those who cannot forecast the consequences of their actions. I’m tired of the ground permanently shifting around under my feet, and tired of reacting to other people’s bad decisions. Tired.
I’m especially tired of everyone wanting something from me that they did nothing to earn. Duplicitous status whores, false potentates, graven idols – that’s what I see everywhere I look. Gah.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The only solace for me is when I’m alone and behind the camera. This is the latest iteration of a certain shot I’ve been chasing, depicting the 7 entering the Queens Plaza station on the elevated tracks. This one counts as “almost” and I won’t be satisfied until I manage to get the crimson and orange sky shot I’m yearning for. I keep on missing that one, which in the last week alone I was denied from chasing it by a series of evening meetings which kept me here at HQ in front of the computer.
It’s all dissolution and death ahead of me, nothing matters anymore.
Back next week, hopefully with a better mood and outlook, and lots of swell pix at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“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.
clamoured forms
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Riding the trains again, that’s me. As stated previously, I never thought I’d come to a juncture in my life where I missed riding the subways but I guess that’s what a fairly unprecedented public health emergency teaches a guy. The shot above, of course, wasn’t captured within the system. Instead I was scuttling down Skillman Avenue on my way to do a thing. I’m also “doing things” again. Had my very first live and in person meeting in the last 16 months just last week. Everybody in the room was vaxxed, naturally.
A humble narrator finds himself in a weird place these days. As I’ve mentioned to several people in the last month or so, I no longer have any tolerance whatsoever for other people’s bullshit. Used to be that I’d make excuses for you, or try to explain the many reasons why you’re justified acting like a walking/talking asshole. No more. No second chances. Piss me off just a little bit these days and it doesn’t matter how long we’ve known each other – you’re done. If you’re somebody I didn’t like all that much to start with… woof.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I find that the angst and anxiety I was experiencing throughout the pandemic has transformed into red hot anger. What the hell is wrong with you people? Are you all really this stupid and selfish? Those are questions which have been soundly answered, and the answer is “yes.”
Accordingly, my inclination is to say “Ok, no more Mr. Nice Guy,” and to stop pretending that I’m a better person than I actually am. Patience is no longer a virtue I exhibit. If there isn’t a payoff for being decent, I’ll just go the other way and get mine. Fuck y’all. This is an inclination which I’m currently struggling with.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While I’m trying to figure out how to quell all of the anger and disappointment I’m carrying around with me, I’m also trying to find a way forward which doesn’t involve me screaming at people at the top of my lungs about minor sleights and annoyances. Just this morning, I had to instruct my bagel guy to stop talking and just listen to my bagel shepherding instructions with an “I’M TALKING NOW, JUST LISTEN.” I apologized afterwards, and tipped him well for the affront, but holy smokes am I currently a lit fuse waiting to go off. Sorry Jose, wasn’t your fault.
Best thing, I think, is to solitarily hit the streets with the camera and lose myself in a few audiobooks. It’s been a while since I listened to “The Dunwich Horror” so I’m going to start trying to calm myself with a bit of my old pal Howie Lovecraft.
“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.
deadly sweetness
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I really cannot believe how much I missed this sort of sight over the last year and a half. I also cannot believe my luck in not contracting COVID, as so many people I know did, before the vaccinations became available. Luckily, most of the people in my inner circle who did become infected with the bug recovered, but there’s also a few people I know who didn’t survive the experience or who are suffering from the “long Covid” suite of symptoms. Plague is no fun, huh?
That’s the Manhattan bound IRT Flushing line 7 train entering Queens Plaza’s lower level tracks. On this particular day, one was feeling a bit tired and sore from a long walk the day before, so I opted to “ride the trains” since I had nowhere else to be or go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Still working on it.
Did you know that the purpose of the different colors painted on the steel structures of the transit infrastructure around Queens Plaza and the Queensboro Bridge is to clearly indicate which structure is which? This way some badly informed construction worker doesn’t accidentally torch their way through a support column for one of the bridge’s vehicle ramps while they’re intending to perform maintenance on the elevated subway tracks instead. Queens trivia!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My “ride the trains” shot list involves getting on and off the train at various stops and cracking out a few exposures. The one above was gathered after I had left the system and was walking down Queens Boulevard on my way back to HQ in Astoria.
I can’t resist most shots with the Empire State Building in a dominant position. Add in a sunset and a 7 train? Pfah.
“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.
dizzy precipitation
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Seriously, how happy is a humble narrator when his pedestrian crossing of the Pulaski Bridge gets interrupted by the double bascule drawbridge opening up to allow a vessel navigating along the fabulous Newtown Creek to pass by below? Everybody else just gets annoyed at the obstacle, I get busy with the camera. Joy.
Luckily, just like at Sunnyside Yards where there’s seemingly an Amtrak employee whose duty revolves around creating and closing holes in the fences, there seems to be an analogous job title at the NYC DOT. Therefore, after getting my open Pulaski shot done, I went over to one of my favorite holes. (That last sentence sounds like a dirty series of sex metaphors, doesn’t it? I wonder… What sex act would be called an “open Pulaski”?)
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At my favorite Pulaski hole – which I’m going to ask you to interpret literally – as in it’s a hole in the fence on the Pulaski Bridge – I saw a Long Island Rail Road engine pulling a train… wait… oh… damn it… everything I say is contaminated now…
If you’re nearby the LIRR’s Hunters Point rail yard you really only see trains moving around a couple of times a day, usually in the 2 or 3 hour long intervals known as “rush hour.” The trains leaving this yard cross Borden Avenue and enter the Sunnyside Yards coach yard, where connections to both Eastern Long Island and Manhattan can be accessed. The Long Island City based Hunters Point Yard is where the LIRR parks rolling stock during the day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned last week, since I’m all vaxxed up I’ve been riding the subways again. I’m entertaining myself while waiting for Astoria bound N trains to arrive at Queens Plaza by working on capturing an “iconic” shot of the IRT Flushing line 7 trains entering the station on the high elevated tracks. I’ll be shooting this particular angle for a bit, in all kinds of different weather and at varying times of the day for a bit so there you are.
Funnily enough, when I pulled the camera down from my face I noticed that there was a cop quietly standing on either side of me. There was no encounter with the gendarmerie, but they did follow me onto the N train which I made it a point of riding to the last stop on. When the train rolled into the station I smiled, waved my hand at them, and reversed course.
“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.
The Newtown Pentacle 