Posts Tagged ‘Astoria’
veined fist
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All of my favorite places have received a visit since I’ve been back in NYC, including Astoria’s own Luyster Creek. Recent conversation with high ranking officers of the City’s Department of Environmental Protection firmly established the fact of this waterway’s existence and the actual location of a particularly noisome “combined sewer outfall” pipe along its waterfront, which is maintained by their agency. They seemed surprised.
I have had – in fact – several conversations with highly placed personages in the political state recently wherein they asked me – a private citizen – to gather photos and write reports for them – pro bono – on their own infrastructure, ways of doing business, and work practices. One actually asked me to prepare a categorical inventory of the utility poles and wire snares leading to and from these utility poles in Astoria and Woodside.
There is a New York State Public Service Commission operating out of an office at 90 Church Street in Manhattan, which oversees the utility poles of Consolidated Edison, Spectrum, RCN, National Grid, and Verizon within NYC. If the answer to “who ya going to call” isn’t “Ghostbusters,” perhaps these employees of the political state are the correct answer. Not me, unless you’ve got a fist full of cash to compensate me for the trouble, not anymore.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Raphael De Niro led “Wildflower Studios” construction project is at work right now at Luyster Creek, which will result in a television and movie studio being erected alongside the Steinway Piano Factory in Astoria. The wooded shoreline on the western shore pictured above will also soon become a Department of Sanitation Garage. You should have seen their faces when I invoked the NYC charter requirement of “1% for art or public access” on them in a community board meeting. What depressed me was how few of my fellow CB members had ever actually slogged through the NYC Charter. You mess around with Lawyers, it’s a good idea to have at least read the law book.
Y’know, I’ve had a number of people ask me recently if I’m depressed or something. I’m the opposite of that these days, I’m pissed off and have decided that another facet of my newly adopted philosophy of sociopathy is unvarnished truth telling. As an old punk song offered – “Are you offended? Well, sorry, but maybe you needed to be offended, and one more thing – fuck you.” I just don’t care anymore, which brings me back full circle to the angry young man I used to be.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Everything is broken, and nobody wants to say it. I’ve always been the one willing to tell Granny that the soup is too salty. It’s better to be honest than to lie. In the political world, they’ll dance around uncomfortable subjects. “He might be owned outright by big real estate, and worked closely with Jared Kushner on luxury apartments in Williamsburg and oversaw the creation of Hudson Yards, but he’s great on bike lanes, and inclusionary policies regarding homeless electricians.” Yes, he handled the homeless shelter giveaway spree for De Blasio’s City Hall, but he’s great on police reform. She’s great on bike lanes, but is pro development, and… Pfah.
We’ve crossed the precipice of voting monsters into office because they are the only ones who can make the trains run on time… y’all do realize that, right?
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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.
mendicant wanderings
Friday, but published a day late
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, one has been out of town for most of the month of September. Amtrak has been my chariot, although for one weekend in there my pal Hank the Elevator Guy drove his car. The shot above was captured on the first leg of my journeys, depicting the scene from the trackage of the Hell Gate Bridge with Astoria Park in the foreground and mighty Triborough featured prominently. More next week.
“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.
snouted denizens
Monday
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
Experimental in nature, the images in today’s post are actually hundreds of images wound into YouTube video files. I set the camera up to capture time lapses of the storm setting itself up on Saturday night. Was hoping for lightning, but there you go. The one above is looking westwards from Astoria right about sunset.
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
When the storm really got going, and it turns out that Saturday broke the record in NYC for a single day’s worth of rain, I had to move the camera to a somewhat safer and drier position. All of these were captured at HQ – by the way – where a humble narrator was bunkered down, drinking tea and eating toast. This one looks at the sewer grate on my corner as it drank up hundreds and hundreds of gallons of water.
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is from a little earlier in the evening, looking southwest along Astoria’s Broadway as the clouds and humidity built up. One was quite aware of his ear drums at this point in the evening, as the atmospheric pressure built and the storm neared. Back tomorrow with something else.
Also, tonight is the actual, calendrical, Night of the Living Dead.
“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.
glutless zeal
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s an example of a Flopwhistle’s Water Hen pictured above. Given that I’m always wrong about what kind of a bird a bird is, one has undertaken the practice of just assigning random names to the various avians I encounter. This particular “bird on a wire” was hanging around HQ here in Astoria during the 72 hours I got to spend quarantining myself from the exposure to Covid which offered by an anti-vaxxer friend of mine. Grrr.
This particular person received a verbal dressing down the other day. For those of you who haven’t experienced what it’s like when a humble narrator drops the facade and stops pretending to be a nice guy… it ain’t pretty. I’ve been told it’s like having a thesaurus yelling at you, since I also drop all pretense of colloquialism and the carefully constructed artifice of my working class persona.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This week, since nobody who works for New York State – nor Con Edison or Spectrum cable – can visualize the hornets nest of dead wire and overburdened utility poles without photos of it, one has to go out and perform a photographic survey of the ludicrous situation hanging over our heads. Literally the entire regional economy hangs off of utility poles, and it can be derailed with a single fallen tree. Y’all want it, you’re gonna get it. Then you can found a blue ribbon committee that recommends things which will never happen.
I am so tired of fighting, lords and ladies.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, a negative Covid test for both Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself has ensured that we haven’t been derailed from the extensive travel schedule which is in the works for September. My anti-vaxx friend’s defenses of his perceived “freedoms” came close to attenuating my own freedom – see? I’ve got an Amtrak package which I’ll be spending in that interval, and bringing the camera to new and different locales for a change of pace. It’s been so long since I left NYC…
Vacation, all I ever wanted…
“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.
once revolved
je m’appelle Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, one has reactivated a formerly inactive and semi retired lens back into service. I won’t bore you with the technical details revolving around the camera, instead I’ll just say that this particular lens never performed terribly well on my old camera and it fell out of active rotation in favor of other devices. Saying that, it’s complimentary to the newer camera I’m now using so there you are.
These shots were gathered while hanging around Astoria, carousing and watching the other Queensicans go about their business. This is a telephoto lens, which allows me to get “up close and personal” from about a block away. Its biggest flaw on the RF system is that it’s a fairly “dark” lens, with a variable aperture.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The “variable aperture” bit means that as you zoom in or out, its internal settings change. It’s f4-6.3 over the range, if you’re curious. One vastly prefers lenses which don’t do this, and the rest of my current kit doesn’t do variable, but that’s where they get you on price. At the moment, I don’t have any financial impetus to upgrade to a better lens for this particular function. Also, maybe it’s just me, but if you’re zoomed out to 300mm you really want to be working the image at narrow apertures to ensure sharpness.
For those of you who aren’t camera nerds – lenses with wide apertures like f1.8-f4 produce images with narrow focal planes but allow a lot of light into the camera. Think about portrait shots with blurry backgrounds for what that looks like. Narrower apertures produce more edge to edge sharpness, but restrict the amount of light entering the camera, necessitating longer exposure times and or higher ISO settings. Photographers, myself included, drool over bright lenses. Lens manufacturers price their wares accordingly, and – generally speaking – the brighter a lens is, the more expensive it is.
Telephoto lenses with wide apertures are ludicrously expensive, which is why you generally see them employed by Paparazzi, Sports, or Wedding photographers. I take pictures of junk yards and tugboats, so…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Where that narrow aperture really bites you in the tuchas is at night, or in any situation which isn’t “outside during the day.” The rest of my lens kit is very capable in low light conditions, and even at f1.8 I’ve been hitting tack sharp infinity focus with them. The 70-300 I’ve brought out of retirement isn’t really in the same league as these more modern lenses, and its color rendering requires a bit of adjustment and attention that the newer ones don’t need. Saying that, it’s already paid for, so win.
Speaking of winning… what are you doing on August 7th? I’ll be conducting a WALKING TOUR OF LONG ISLAND CITY with my pal Geoff Cobb. Details and ticketing available here. Come with?
“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 