subdued sort
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After returning from Pittsburgh, a humble narrator set about developing photos and chilling out for a couple of days before resuming the normal round. Some Newtown Creek Alliance business found me in Brooklyn’s East Williamsburgh section, alongside the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge, on September the 8th.
We were checking out a venue for our annual fundraiser – the Tidal Toast – and needed to do a walkthrough. NCA is awarding a humble narrator with the “Reveal” award in this – my last year on Newtown Creek – on October 20th. If you’d like to attend, and support a great organization which has been central to the last 15 years of my life, click here for more information.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a week of traveling in Pittsburgh, and all of those heavy breakfasts, the idea of a walk back to Astoria afterwards sounded fantastic to me. The weather was great, and my camera batteries full.
This is the view from the venue that the Tidal Toast will be held at, which is the Brooklyn studios of a hand painted advertising sign and billboard company called Colossal Media.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My plan for the afternoon was simple. I walked down Grand Street, towards the Grand Street Bridge crossing on Newtown Creek’s tributary English Kills, where Grand Street transmogrifies into Grand Avenue when it enters the Maspeth section of Queens.
Along the way, there’s a lot of sights. Pictured above is a metals recycling operation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Grand Street Bridge, which is going to be replaced fairly soon. Something I’m going to miss out on.
Since I was in the neighborhood, one pointed his toes first at the Maspeth Avenue Plank Road, and then at the Maspeth Creek tributary.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There were a passel of Canadian Dicks Geese in the poison waters of Maspeth Creek, swimming around and dunking their heads into the slimy liquidity, to eat up whatever debased forms of life they subsist off of.
In recent years, Newtown Creek has become infested with noisome and quite aggressive Canada Geese.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A cast away automobile was visible on the shoreline when I was passing by. Visibility is related to where you are in the tidal cycle for this sort of thing.
The geese didn’t care, nothing matters to them either.
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stark objective
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s a pretty long drive, Pittsburgh to NYC. Give or take, it’s about 370 miles, which is an all day sort of affair. On the way to Pittsburgh, my pal Max and I used the northern route, which was picturesque and scenic. On the way back, we used the southern route along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which was tedious and somewhat difficult driving. The tedious part comes in because of road work, which narrows the high speed road to two rather meager lanes, which is where the difficult part comes in. At one point, we encountered a 40 miles long stretch of concrete jersey barriers on either side of us, and the block of traffic we were moving with included dozens of semi tractor trailer trucks which were moving at 70-100 mph. No fun.
Max and I split the driving up, and whenever he was behind the wheel, I had the camera in hand and set up for high speed captures. The shots in today’s post are “snapshots” randomly captured along the route, rather than composed photos.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a few spots along the Pennsylvania Turnpike where they just dug out a tunnel going through the base of a mountain rather than routing the road over it. I doubt there’s ever been anyone more qualified to do this sort of thing than mid 20th century Pennsylvanians, given their history in the mining industry. About a mile in advance of these tunnels, you start seeing signs telling drivers to remove their sunglasses and turn on their headlights. That’s how long these tunnels are.
Saying that, it’s really something when you exit one and “boom” – there’s a valley with heavily wooded slopes leading into farmland. Beautiful sights.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oddly, we didn’t see too much of this sort of thing. The fellow who committed one of his fields to free advertising for a NYC Real Estate huckster’s political ambition – pictured above – seemed to have a property bisected by the highway. On the other side of the road was a decrepit semi trailer which had a hand painted “Trump” logo which was accompanied by the screed “God. Guns. No Socialism.”
This of course, pissed me off. There is no business sector in these United States more dependent on “socialism” than farming. There’s tax benefits, direct handouts of money and supplies, oversight, price controls… Honestly…
Whatever, opinions are like assholes, everyone’s got one and I’m not interested in seeing or hearing about anyone else’s.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As the day wore on, we passed through Pennsylvania’s Capitol Harrisburg and the very rural central section of the state that’s referred to as “Pennsyltucky.” I had one of my biannual McDonald’s double cheeseburgers in this section, and killed a couple of dozen Spotted Lanternflies while we were gassing up the car. Apparently, Harrisburg is the national “ground zero” for this invasive species’ infestation.
Soon, we were hurtling along at 70 mph again, heading towards the Atlantic coast of America, and the archipelago Megalopolis which squats rudely along its edge against the ocean.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was actually surprised at how many horses I saw. I mean, I wasn’t expecting not to see livestock, but usually it’s cows or pigs or maybe sheep. Horses.
My pal Max handled the drive from Harrisburg to New Jersey’s Allentown. From there, I took over the wheel and dealt with the maddening set of pinch point barriers that multiply and fester as you get closer and closer to NYC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The one above is the last shot from this excursion. Somewhere in the blue mountains, which are, as you can see – actually kind of blue.
Something different tomorrow, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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over running
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My most recent trip to Pittsburgh ended with a boat tour at sunset, one offered by the Gateway Clipper outfit which operates out of a dock on the south side of the Monongahela River. Truth be told, one was rather excited to exercise his hand held night shooting skills.
Haven’t had too much of a chance to do this lately, what with all the tumult associated with preparing to move out of NYC and to this amazing City called Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself descended behind… Ohio… a few lens swaps were required. The trusty 25-105 zoom lens went into the bag, and the 85mm and 35mm primes came out.
The photographic situation and circumstance is difficult – you’re on a moving boat, and everything around you is either clad in deep shadow or brightly illuminated by artificial light. Sometimes, it’s both.
As I’ve mentioned in the past, unlike NYC, Pittsburgh still uses old school sodium lamps for their street lighting. NYC uses modern LED luminaires. The LED’s cast a cold blue glow whereas the sodium ones emanate w warm yellow/orange light.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Gateway Clipper ride is about an hour in length, and is narrated by a tour guide. The boat itself has a bar onboard, but I wasn’t at all interested in libation. Truth be told, I was actually perspiring a bit as I was hard at work. Typically, I move about when onboard a boat, jotting from bow to stern, and port to starboard frequently.
Got to make the most of your investments, when you’ve actually paid for a ticket.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shot above is one I dearly wish that I had the zoom lens on for, but it was a “worst case scenario” kind of subject. A fast moving freight train, backlit by very bright and strongly colored lights, seen from onboard a moving boat.
I keep on telling myself that there will be all the time in the world, starting next year.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s downtown Pittsburgh, as seen from the confluence point of the Ohio, Monongahela, and Allegheny Rivers.
For a mega massive panorama showing this scene with both the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers – click here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We headed back to dock and my pal Max and I summoned a ride back to the AirBNB we were staying at. While waiting for the car, we noticed several people milling about who looked like super heros. Turns out that the local Marriot Hotel was hosting a bodybuilders convention over the weekend and a group of very fit people were flexing about.
It was time to pack up though, the next day would see us returning to NYC, and a long drive awaited us.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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politely holding
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the 1st of September, a Thursday, I got to spend a few hours solo “just doing my thing.” My pal Max had driven off somewhere, and a humble narrator set off to accomplish a certain task. I’ve become fascinated by the Lenticular Truss span which the Pittsburgh people describe as being the “Smithfield Street Bridge.” In prior posts about travel in the Pittsburgh area, I expressed a desire to examine it thoroughly from a photographic point of view, which is now accomplished from an “up, down, all around” POV. In fact, I took so many shots of the thing that I decided to just embed them into a video slideshow, which is above. No sound on this, just images.
As a note, there’s a few shots in there from the water at night, which were gathered on the evening of the 2nd of September. I’ll show you a few more shots from that excursion tomorrow.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One stuck to the southern shoreline of Pittsburgh, and in particular the Mount Washington side of the Monongahela River. Prior exploration had revealed that this is the side of the City where you’re likely to encounter and photograph freight rail rolling along, which I was desirous to do.
That choice paid off.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This kind of shot is difficult to capture. You focus in on the fast moving subject, and then pivot the lens along with its travel path, turning your body at the waist. High failure rate with this sort of shot. Things went right for me in the one above, with the horizontal motion blur and the sharp focal on the CSX locomotive engine and all that.
“I meant for that to happen” is a sentence sometimes offered by happy photographers when their gambles pay off.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Duquesne Incline was ridden next. It carried me to the top of Mt. Washington, where the always excellent set of views from the prominence awaited.
This time around, I would mention, I had prepared my phone with the local transit apps. My life was made immeasurably easier by this preparation, since I could just seamlessly buy a ticket and ride the thing without having to wait on a line to purchase a ticket.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Up on Mt. Washington, I installed a “long” telephoto zoom lens onto the camera and started picking out detailed areas to point the thing at.
Another CSX train set was transiting through.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Truth be told, and as mentioned yesterday, something that continually caught my eye was the web of high speed roads, on and off ramps, and their interactions with the surrounding City. That’s the Fort Duquesne Bridge, if you’re curious, which crosses the Allegheny River.
More tomorrow, from the Paris of Appalachia.
“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.
embodying that
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One was desirous of “getting busy” with the camera after several days of catch as catch can shooting out a car window. Luckily, my pal Max and I found ourselves on Mount Washington’s Grandview Avenue just as the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself was descending behind… I guess it’s Ohio out here? That’s the “iconic” view of the dead bang center of the Pittsburgh Metro above.
My whole world is about to get rocked. Imagine… the world beyond New Jersey. I’m going into the west, like the colonial Dutch, or one of Tolkien’s elves.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I set up the tripod for these, and got fancy with how I was shooting them. This one looks up the Allegheny River from the prominence of Mount Washington. Can’t wait to start exploring this area in earnest and finding less common points of view, but for now – this’ll do.
The “shmear” of light in the midst of the Allegheny River is a tour boat operated by the Gateway Clipper outfit. This was a longish exposure.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The one above looks up along the Ohio River. Pittsburgh is where the convergence of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers form into the headwaters of the Ohio. So much to learn…
That entire “zone” in the field of view of the shot above is – so far – “terra incognito” for me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The highways in this area are wild. High speed roads with cloverleaf overpasses and ramps as far as the eye can see.
Such an interesting place this is.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I felt the need to zoom in on those highways, and study the massing shapes that they form. My perception of the “structure of things” in this area seem to be like that of a pearl necklace – with the high speed roads being the string, and the residential and commercial/industrial developments the pearls. That’s my first impression, of course, and I’m likely just trying to categorize and put something “in a box” based on limited observation, which is something I tend to do.
Give me a couple of years to figure things out, and learn the history of why things are where they are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself disappeared, it got “proper dark.” Cracked out one last shot of the iconic view, and my pal Max and I headed off to dinner and then the AirBNB we were staying at. These shots were collected on the 31st of August, a Wednesday.
The 1st of September plan involved my pal Max heading off on his own, and for me to do a proper photowalk with the camera on my own.
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 