Posts Tagged ‘Dormont’
Home, boys
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pittsburgh is so damn cool. Yes, it absolutely blows walking up hills like this one a block from HQ. It’s also fairly challenging to walk down that particular hill. It’s so steep here that the various municipalities of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania is a commonwealth, which has a very odd way of doing business as compared to the more familiar organization of a “State” like New York or New Jersey) maintain hundreds of of municipal staircases and foot bridges just so people can get around on foot.
The housing stock is disturbingly heterogenous.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Homogeneity seems to occur when some historical builder had a largish lot to fill. Porches and yards are pretty common. This shot is from a neighboring town where the Fallowfield stop on the T is found. Wish I could say what the town/area is called, but my ignorance remains somewhat palpable. Heck – I’ve just gotten to the point where I’m beginning to understand the broad strokes of driving to various areas of interest and or the neighborhoods they’re found in, let alone knowing the nitty gritty stuff.
I’ve also started using ‘heck’ a hell of a lot mutha effin more. Potty talk isn’t really appreciated here in Pittsburgh. Being from Brooklyn, this deletes about half of my vocabulary.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Also mentioned in a prior post, I’m bringing a few of my older lenses out of retirement. This one is an old favorite, the Sigma 18-35mm f1.8. I was waving it around in my back yard recently, testing how it responded to the alien experience of being attached to a mirrorless camera. I was looking for a subject to put the thing through a few paces, and realized that although I’d mentioned the Mobile Oppression Platform many times now, I’d never shown off the ride.
Now seriously… doesn’t the MOP look like the kind of thing an Imperial Stormtrooper from Star Wars would drive around in? Whatever… 39 mpg, Lords and Ladies, 39 mpg. I stop strangers on the street and tell them that.
Back tomorrow.
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Dormont hullabaloo
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A ‘long walk’ day came along, and has been my recent habit at such intervals, a humble narrator scuttled up the hill here in Pittsburgh’s Dormont section to catch the light rail and travel into the ‘central’ section of the metro area. Along the way, I walked past an absolute cacophony of laboring Yinzers.
Yinzer is how Pittsburgh people refer to themselves, as a note.
This particular outfit has been busily scratching at the ground hereabouts for the last couple of months. Word has it they’re installing some sort of fiber optic dealie, and it’s been a bit of pain in the neck as far as noise and street closures. I’m fairly used to this, of course, as the corner I lived on, back in Queens’ Astoria, was a fairly busy one with lots and lots of this sort of thing going on literally all the time. Usually it would occur in the middle of the night, with the generator or other equipment set up directly under my bedroom window.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is Broadway Avenue in Dormont, incidentally, nearby the Patomac station. There’s several spots along this line where the light rail just rides up to a concrete pad no higher than a standard curb, but there’s several stops where you’ve got ‘high platform’ actual stations. Patomac is one of those. The T, as the light rail is called, has two sets of doors – one for the high platform, and another for the low. The latter exit and entrance is set up like the sort of situation you’d encounter in a bus, with a little set of steps leading out. Pictured above, the light rail set is moving away from Pittsburgh.
As is my habit, when I’m waiting for a train to arrive, the camera starts getting waved around. Some bloke started chatting about photography with me on the platform while I was doing so. Pleasant chap.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My ride into the City showed up more or less at the same time as the one leaving Pittsburgh entered the Patomac high platform Station. The fiber optic project follows the T tracks, more or less, and service has been a bit off for the last couple of months due to this and other projects along the route. Saying that, it usually won’t be more than about twenty minutes before another T comes along. I’d regularly wait longer at Queens Plaza for the R.
The photography enthusiast whom I’d been chatting with, and I, boarded the T and headed into town. More on what I did there, after wishing him a fond adieu and a pleasant day, and all that… tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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“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.
Heading into town
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was time for my weekly ‘long walk,’ the sort which sees me scuttling along for 15-20,000 steps over several hours. I don’t wear a Fitbit or anything like that to keep track of my walks, rather I just check the iPhone health app and see what it says after I return to HQ. It’s not a terribly accurate count, but some sort of metric is better than nothing at all, and it really doesn’t matter all that much in the end anyway.
Pictured is a street in the town I’m living in, Dormont. The car Mobile Oppression Platform was left at home this time around, and a humble narrator was heading for the Pittsburgh light rail service known as “The T.” It’s a bit of a drag, I’d mention, getting ‘up’ to the tracks, as I live way down at the bottom of that hill pictured above. There’s a less severe hill to walk up which gets you to the high ground ridge line which the T tracks are on, but that’s Pittsburgh for ya. Also, the point of this exercise is actually ‘exercise,’ so… scuttle, scuttle, scuttle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Service on the T is fairly frequent, more so during the ‘rush’ periods as you’d imagine, but you’re seldom waiting more than 20-25 minutes for your ride. This one is coming from Pittsburgh, whereas I was waiting on one that’s going ‘to.’ One weird thing about their setup here revolves around fare collection. You pay when you board the Pittsburgh bound service, and pay when you’re exiting for the away from Pittsburgh route. Apparently, there’s a zone system built into the operation, but Dormont is far enough from the center that you pay full fare anyway. Once you’re in the actual center of town, the service runs free between Station Square and the North Side terminal stops.
As a note, the sky in Pittsburgh was positively boiling and cascading about on this particular day. I have been putting a bit of effort into finding the right photographic exposure settings for capturing the dynamism of these Pittsburgh sky in recent months.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The climate is very different here than the one I’ve always known back in NYC. It could be 90 degrees with an 80 percent dew point at 3 in the afternoon, but 8 hours later it’s 60 degrees with a 30 percent dew point. The clouds positively boil over sometimes, after churning about, and when they finish dumping out moisture for an hour you’ll suddenly get glorious blue skies, golden light, and cotton ball cloud formations. An hour later and the sky is black with thunderstorms. Also, there’s actual forest cover laced into the City, meaning that the ‘urban heat island effect’ doesn’t seem to be as big a factor here as it was ‘back in the old neighborhood.’
At any rate, my carriage had arrived, and it was time to get onboard and head into the City of Pittsburgh. Here’s a bit of trivia – when you see blue street signs with white/knock out lettering, you’re in Pittsburgh – as in ‘The City of…’
Back tomorrow, lords and ladies.
“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.
Move, move, move
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lots and lots of tasks needed tending, doctors appointments and other boring mundanities. This has seen me driving around greater Pittsburgh a lot and occasionally sticking the camera through the car’s moon roof when I’m waiting at red lights. I cannot wait for the inevitable day that I have to explain this to a cop at a traffic stop. That’s Downtown Pittsburgh pictured above.
I think this was from the first weekend in June. We experienced a couple of really disconcerting things during this interval. My next door neighbor’s house had a structural fire break out, for instance, which I had a front row seat for. 5 engine companies showed up to put it out. Other insalubrious stuff has happened too, but that’s life in the not so big City, huh?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another errand of mine involved bringing the Mobile Oppression Platform into the local Toyota dealership for its 5,000 mile servicing dealie. They rotate the tires and measure the various juices, and plug in a diagnostic device to run some kind of software checks on the various systems under the hood. Warranty maintenance stuff, basically, which is something I need to contractually oblige. It took about 90 minutes and then I was out.
While cooling my heels for the hour and a half, the verticality of the opposite side of the street caught my eye. I think that house is in Beechview, but I’m kind of guessing. I gotta say, if I owned a property here with a yard that had a slope like that, I’d pay whatever I had to for some landscape terracing. Flat areas. Then again, if I do end up owning property at some point, my first priority will be planning and building the boobie traps and kill alleys. That means I’m going to have a long conversation with the Postal and Amazon guys, of course. I’m also going to want to own the mineral rights of the under lands. Coal, yo.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above, in the Pittsburgh Borough of Dormont where HQ can be found, is about how bad the Canadian wildfire smoke got for us. It wasn’t anything like what y’all on the East Coast experienced.
!!! HEY, THAT’S THE FIRST TIME I’VE GOTTEN TO SAY THAT! A disaster happened in NYC and I wasn’t in the middle of it! WOW.
Really… Get out while you still can.
“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.
Not shy
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One hasn’t really explored the ‘close/near’ vicinity around HQ all that much, which is specifically Pittsburgh’s Borough of Dormont. Take a look at that terrain and you can probably guess why. That this is one heck of a hill to walk up is something I can tell you from experience, and I also gotta tell’s ya – walking down it ain’t all that simple either. That’s Downtown Pittsburgh on the horizon, peeking out over the trees, which is found roughly 5 miles away.
Also, I don’t really like taking pictures of residential neighborhoods, which Dormont mostly is. People get all bent out of shape when they see some bloke with a camera wandering around as it is. Fair enough, I guess. They’re all paranoid about ‘pedos’ out here. There’s billboards. Another big worry is ‘human trafficking,’ apparently.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been playing around in the dark, however. HQ has a deck facing out into our yard which adjoins another ‘thing’ I never encountered before moving here, which is a ‘paper alley.’ It’s used as community drive, is a semi paved street that goes all tree and vegetation halfway up the hill before it then joins with two other alleys at the top of the hill, forming a T shaped intersection that parallels a nearby street. All of this is found in between all the houses/yards and whatnot. Interestingly, it’s meant to be owned by the Post Office, but is administered by the local municipality. Commonwealths, amirite?
The deck situation allows me to experiment with different camera setups in dark situations. I had a porch back in Astoria, but that was pretty much a light and air pollution hot spot because of the traffic, bridges, highways, restaurant exhausts, and LaGuardia.
Here’s something I can tell you – a 35mm f1.8 lens can allow a shot – no more than 8 seconds – of the night sky before motion is recorded into the image due to the rotation of the earth, relative to the starry dome. 4 seconds is actually preferable. ISO is basically whatever it has to be for the exposure, and for the other settings to be valid.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lastly… if you’re going to be playing Bagpipes while riding a unicycle around Pittsburgh on a sunny afternoon, somebody is going to take a picture of you. Possibly video as well. Don’t get all prissy at the photographer, as he’s not the one who decided to ride around a park on a unicycle while playing bagpipes. You’re not shy, as you’re the one riding a unicycle while playing bagpipes.
Sheesh.
Back 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 