Archive for the ‘railroad’ Category
thing therein
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the 4th of July, I planned to get shots of the Macy’s Fireworks show on the East River, but didn’t want to go anywhere near the water. I had two spots in mind, and was debating which one to gravitate towards. Luckily, both spots had a common corner where my paths diverged, so I chewed on the decision while walking towards it.
The shot above and the one directly below are actually from July 3rd, when I took a short walk around the neighborhood just to stretch my legs.
Along my way, nearby Sunnyside Yards, I spotted this van. A Holy Roller, indeed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When walking past Sunnyside Yards, it’s impossible for me not to crack out a few shots of the trains they have on display.
Amtrak does a whole lot of maintenance work here. Cleaning, stocking, mechanical stuff.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the 4th of July, I finally had to make a decision about where I was going to shoot the fireworks from. I initially considered the area around Dutch Kills.
As mentioned previously, the trick with fireworks is to create a “sense of place” in the shot. Given that the 4th of July fireworks will always have the Empire State Building in the center of the display…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I set out from HQ a couple of hours in advance of the scheduled show, and actually changed my mind while en route.
Greenpoint Avenue at the Long Island Expressway would be my spot!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Along the way, I passed by an FDNY maintenance facility and they had just opened the roll up door as I was walking down the street…
Firemen! Firemen! Firemen!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Fireworks, as described at the beginning of this week regarding another display at Astoria Park, require a simple exposure formula. F8/ISO 200/4-8 second exposures. I claimed a spot, and believe it or not, I was soon surrounded by Blissvillians and Sunnysiders here on the onramp for the Long Island Expressway at Greenpoint Avenue.
I intended, therefore, to include the crowd and the traffic in my shots. It was a part of the show, after all.
– photos by Mitch Waxman
The YouTube video above is what I got. No sound on this one, so no point in headphones. It’s a series of still images strung together in a slide show.
Back next week.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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keenly resented
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, and several times in fact, the way I pass the long hours of an Amtrak trip is by taking random snapshots of America. That sounds pretentious, but… that’s what they are. A homemade foam collar is affixed to my lens, then I set the camera up at a very high ISO setting and a wide open aperture. I then set the shutter speed to an insanely small sliver of time – 1/2000th or faster. It’s a challenging situation – Amtrak’s windows generally ain’t too clean or free of scratches, and the window glass itself has a reddish brown coloration to it. Saying all that – 8 hour train trip, yo – gotta do something to pass the time.
The video above represents what I saw between Harrisburg and somewhere in the middle of New Jersey. The sun was illuminating my window from about 4 o’clock on, and there’s really no way to combat the fact that your lens is pointed directly at the sun through a dirty and scratched brown window. Anyway… made it back to “home sweet hell.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I stepped off the train into a “NYC swamp ass hot day.” There was also a parade letting out, which was probably “Pride” given all the rainbow gear the paraders were parading around with. I walked a block to the E, returned to Queens at Queens Plaza, and caught a R back to the rolling hills of almond eyed Astoria.
So – That’s that story. This was June 26th, incidentally.
Six image posts are going to continue for a bit, as the particularly prolific photographic spree I’ve been experiencing continues. This post is being written in the second week of July, which is also good news as I’m way ahead of schedule.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I hung around HQ and the neighborhood for a few days after returning from Pittsburgh. June the 29th, however, was a day that the world put out “Mitch Bait.” Given that this is my last summer in NYC, I’m trying to do everything that’s possible for me to do. Visiting people, seeing things, wondering where that smell on the air is coming from. There’s a sentimental resonance in every step I take.
I don’t know if I’m going to miss this dystopian shithole or not, as it’s all I’ve ever known. See that photo right above? That looks normal to me. Everything about it is messed up, starting with the Cops leaving their car parked in a bus stop.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whatever…
One of the things that I haven’t done in a whole lot of years is attend the fireworks display at Astoria Park. It’s a short cross Astoria walk to get there for me, right up 31st street and over to Hoyt Avenue and then scuttle to the water. 31st Street, with its elevated subway tracks, seldom disappoints. There’s always something to take a shot of.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I had been thinking about where I wanted to set up the camera on a tripod. I knew with certainty that the East River waterfront along Shore Blvd. would be mobbed, and I also wanted to get a shot with both bridges in it – the Hells Gate Bridge and the Triborough Bridge. I wanted a bit of water in the shot, but not too much. I’d have to contend with crowds, passerby who wanted to talk about cameras (this happens all the time), and any number of unknown things. When I got to the spot I had visualized, later on, there was a guy setting up a theatrical flying rope rig up in a tree which he was swinging around on, and doing gymnastics. You never know.
Photographing fireworks is fairly simple. You put your camera on a stable thing like a tripod. You set it to ISO 200, F8, and 4-8 seconds depending on ambient conditions. There’s variations on this, but that’s the basic exposure triangle. I usually record fireworks with the camera set for 3400K color temperature.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These shots were captured on the way to Astoria Park.
Along the way, I encountered this Manitou (a French manufacturer of a range of heavy equipment) vehicle parked on the street. It caught my eye, this thing. Given my interest in the belief systems of various parties, the first thing I thought when I read the logo was related to the religious views of the Algonquian peoples. Odd choice, thereby, in corporate branding if you ask me.
You could probably take out a lot of zombies with that thing, I bet…
Tomorrow- fireworks!
“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.
occasionally tearing
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another trip to Pittsburgh came to an end, and there stood a humble narrator at about 7 in the morning, waiting for his train to come.
Amtrak owned the train, of course. Boarding the thing was meant to happen at 7:30 a.m., with an expected arrival at Moynihan Penn Station in NYC at 4:52 p.m. I had a Primanti Brothers sandwich wrapped up tightly in one of my three bags, but my caffeine consumption was limited due to circumstance, so I was in a dreamlike state.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The grandiose old train station in Pittsburgh, as in the one associated with the Pennsylvania Railroad, has been converted over to a residential building. What passes for a train station there in modernity is reminiscent of a Soviet orthodontist’s office with a barely functional drop off and pick up parking lot.
You enter the station through an automatic supermarket style door, and then ride an escalator up to the actual station where the tracks are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Despite the fact that you are absolutely going to be getting on the train, all the people formed up into an anxiously stressed out queue. I found myself standing in between two sections of an Amish family, and asked the Dad to hold my place in line for me. He seemed puzzled by the request, but acceded.
On the non active track, there was something I wanted a shot of.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A lovingly cared for Ohio Central passenger car was on display. I’m told that this is possibly a private car, operated by some corporate outfit that hitches itself onto Amtrak’s rolling stock for expensive private trips. Can’t say if this true or not, but it sounds right given its great condition.
I got back in line with the Amish Family (or maybe Mennonite, I can’t discern what the differences between the two groups are), and the conductor assigned me to a certain car. Amtrak groups travelers who are going to common destinations. I was going “all the way” and was thereby assigned to the very last car on the train. I got a window seat. Hooray.
– photos by Mitch Waxman
As is my habit, I set the camera up for shooting out of the window as the Amtrak rolled along. Embedded above is a YouTube video of the various things which shot past us while heading east, all of which are entirely random. Amtrak schedules in a few stops along the route. There’s usually a crew change at these longer “dwells” in the stations, and they also switch out the locomotive engines (Diesel for CoGen “Hybrid,” or Electric, depending on where you are) at some of these stops. You get about 15 minutes to “smoke ‘em if you got ‘em,” or stretch your legs if you don’t partake. A lot of people were vaping.
The images in the video above were captured between Pittsburgh and the Capitol of Pennsylvania – Harrisburg.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Harrisburg’s Amtrak station is pictured above. One is merely whelmed, not over or under whelmed, by this station.
I got lucky in terms of my seat mate on this trip, just as I did on the ride out to Pittsburgh. Another Nice kid in his 20’s, but this guy lived in the extremely rural “Pennsyltucky” area in the virtual center of the State of Pennsylvania, nearby Lancaster. Lancaster is “Pennsylvania Dutch” country, where the Amish and other sects like the Mennonites live in archaic fashion. The kid wasn’t “Dutch,” but was a farmer who amplified his agricultural income by working as a welder, and he also had a sideline selling firewood. Inevitably, national politics came up, and it was nice to hear somebody from conservative America – “the other side, as it were” – say “man, we really gotta turn down the volume on this shit before the shooting starts.” A humble narrator concurs.
More tomorrow, and back home to NYC, in tomorrow’s 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.
return therefrom
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was a simple plan, really, but what happens when you dare the MTA to screw your day up is where simple plans go all wrong. As mentioned in the past, a humble narrator’s normal habit is to be very early for any appointment. A 10:52 a.m. Amtrak assignation at Penn/Moynihan saw me leaving HQ at just after 9:15 a.m., and after purchasing supplies for a long train journey I was down in the station waiting for a subway by 9:35. Ample time to get there. Right?
Of course, neither the MTA nor I planned on the E sitting under the East River for a little better than 45 minutes, or me missing my Amtrak ticket because of the Subway delay. $111 later, after rapidly buying a second ticket for the last train from NYC to Pittsburgh, I was on my way. Of course, my original journey was going to be about 8 hours long, but thanks to MTA, I now had a 13 hour ride ahead of me – one which saw me riding a local service Amtrak to Washington DC and then transferring onto a Capitol Line Chicago bound train to get to Pittsburgh. Grrr.
– photos by Mitch Waxman
As is my habit in such circumstance, there’s no point in getting angry about it. I settled into a seat and stared out the window, shooting random photos out the windows. The YouTube video above has no sound, nor does the other one below. The one above depicts what I saw on the journey from NYC to Washington DC – which includes the northeast rail corridor in New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.
I think it was something like four and change hours on this leg. Truth be told, it’s all kind of blurry after the ninth hour.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was a brief layover of about 40 minutes in Washington. The Amtrak ticket agent who saved my day back in NYC was fantastic, I should mention. I explained my situation to her, and she barked out “you’ve got seven minutes, give me a credit card and your drivers license.” That was followed by “sign this, and do you have explosives or weapons?” She handed me back my ID and credit card with the new ticket, and said “you have four minutes to catch the train at Track 15, RUN.”
When we arrived in Washington, I debarked the train and walked outside to get some air.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the appointed time, I began making my way down to the boarding area. The direct to Pittsburgh trip from NYC, as mentioned, is about 8 hours. This new combination, on the other hand, was going to be just over 13 hours. That’s Washington D.C.’s Union Station pictured above, by the way.
Our Lady of the Pentacle would be flying out from NYC the next day and meeting me at the airport in Pittsburgh, where our plan involved renting a car from the Avis outfit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, I ended up being assigned a seat on the Capitol Line next to a nice kid who liked to chat, and as it further turned out we shared several interests. He was a youngster, so we struck a deal where I’d buy the coffee if he would go wait on line at the cafe car for it at the other side of the train. This worked out great. For me, at least.
I played with my phone, stared out the Amtrak’s window, and occasionally affixed a little foam collar to my lens so that I could gather photos of the great American landscapes Amtrak puts on display as the train moved through basically all of Pennsylvania.
– photos by Mitch Waxman
It felt like I was on the cusp of attaining enlightenment, that’s how long this trip was… Saying that, I still prefer Amtrak to flying. It wasn’t their fault, me being delayed. For once, I didn’t leave my house two and a half hours in advance of an appointment, and thereby it’s my fault.
This was June 21st, incidentally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just before midnight, Amtrak dropped me off in Pittsburgh. I still had to get to my rented room, an AirBNB found a few miles away in the Brookline section. A quick cab ride found me standing in front of the place at about 12:30 a.m. Funnily enough, about two blocks from where I was staying in Brookline, Pittsburgh has both a Flatbush and Queensboro Avenue. Brookline is really nice, but they obviously spelled it wrong. Lyn… it’s Brooklyn, not Brookline. Hicks.
More next week, at this – your traveling 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.
fiendish subjects
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
May 19th saw me taking a short walk around the Sunnyside Yards and cracking out a bunch of shots of passing trains.
That’s a New Jersey Transit train set on the so called “turnaround” track nearby 43rd street which allows the operator to reorient the thing towards Manhattan as opposed to heading into Queens via the East River tunnels. On another siding of the turnaround track is an Amtrak Acela train set, which was just sort of sitting there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At Honeywell Street, I noticed the train cars on the lower left hand side of the shot above. They’re done up with “New York Central” heraldry. At first I thought I might be accidentally traveling in time, but no. Turns out these are “heritage” passenger car units which are operated by some private outfit.
One of the Facebook groups I’m subscribed to is for train enthusiasts, and the “foamers” filled me in as to what these cars are, who operates them, and so on. Turns out you can ride on these heritage cars if you’ve got money to burn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Also on Honeywell Street bridge (which is found at Queens’ 35th street), one of the many hidden fence holes allowed a view into the Acela maintenance facility at Sunnyside Yards. This is a particularly hard thing to get a shot of, incidentally, and the shot above is heavily cropped in.
I headed back to HQ in Astoria, as the 20th was meant to be a fairly busy day that started early.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
May 20th I was back at Newtown Creek Alliance HQ in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section for a sit down meeting with a friend who was volunteering business advice to our little non profit that could. It may be a non profit corporation, but it’s still a corporation. When advice and wisdom are on offer from somebody who runs and has run far larger entities is on the table, you would be foolish not to absorb as much of it as you can.
Of course, I had to excuse myself a couple of times to wave the camera around as a strong front of thunderstorms approached.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Creeklands were suffused with a heavy fog, being pushed by the pressure waves of that line of storms. This kind of urban atmosphere is absolute candy for a photographer.
Saying that, after the meeting ended, I needed to “get out of dodge” and start heading home quickly lest I get drenched when the storms arrived and all of that fog suddenly condensed and dropped to the ground. A scuttle of the rapid type ensued.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My plan was to cut through the Newtown Creek Nature Walk at the sewer plant in Greenpoint, then to surmount and cross the creek at the Pulaski Bridge. Luckily, I was carrying an umbrella. Managed to get this one of the Empire State Building framed up all nice before the sky opened and it started pissing down in torrents.
More tomorrow.
“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 