Posts Tagged ‘DUKBO’
watching for
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a brief epiphany of light, the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself became occluded by atmospheric clouds again, but one kept on shooting the scenes observable along the Newtown Creek, from up on the Kosciuszcko Bridge’s pedestrian walkway.
As a tip – it’s critical to not allow any part of your camera, whether it be lens barrel or tripod leg, to touch the fence of the bridge when you thrust the lens through. The fence is always vibrating due to the traffic passing by on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, and said vibration will transmit into the camera and ruin your shots. The concrete “ground” you and the tripod are standing on is vibrating too, of course, but less severely than the metal fence is.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking down at Queens side Penny Bridge, that’s Review Avenue running alongside Calvary Cemetery on the right and the mirror like Newtown Creek on the left.
As above, so below, the occultists will tell you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One lingered on the walkway as the gloom spread and the sky dimmed. The lights came on in Manhattan’s largely empty office buildings.
My beloved Creek…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Before switching the setup back over to “night time” handheld mode, I cracked out one final exposure focused in on the Kinder Morgan oil terminal at Greenpoint’s Apollo Street. It used to be the BP Amoco oil terminal until just a few years ago, and before that it was part of the campus of the Mobil/Standard Oil Company’s refinery operations. That’s where the oil spill in Brooklyn was discovered by a passing Coast Guard helicopter in the 1970’s.
A tank farm like Kinder Morgan’s operation stores and distributes various flavors of refined petroleum product. The oil terminal gets filled up and supplied with product by maritime barges, and emptied by semi tanker trucks which make local deliveries to homes and gas stations. Generally speaking, the tank farms which supply the barges are found along the Kill Van Kull waterway in New Jersey. There’s also pipelines which feed product into the facility.
Regarding handheld vs. tripod mode, it is extremely annoying carrying the camera when it’s attached to the tripod. It takes two hands, and it looks like I’m carrying a rifle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve noticed this door before, of course, which sits about thirty to forty feet over the roadway of the BQE. It’s seemingly inaccessible.
I’d like to start a rumor that this is the door to a vault where Andrew Cuomo kept his secret archives.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Behind Cuomo’ s Red Door… that sounds good, huh? Shelly Silver’s sins, Heastie’s haughty pictures, Gianaris’ goof balls… they’re all filed away up there behind the scarlet steel should Cuomo ever find a way to manifest himself again in the flesh. Word has it he’s currently a bodiless consciousness which poltergeists Tish James’ offices.
Who can guess, all there is, that might be hidden behind Cuomo’s Scarlet Steel door, high over the malefic waters of the Newtown Creek?
“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.
seemed older
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
May 4th, in addition to being “Star Wars Day,” offered me one of those 50/50 chances – atmosphere wise – that there would be an interesting sunset. After dealing with my annoying daily round, I packed up my gear and lazily used a cab to carry me over to the entrance of the Kosciuszcko Bridge’s pedestrian ramp in Blissville.
Ok, it really wasn’t that lazy, I just didn’t want to lose an hour of good light scuttling through boring residential neighborhoods, and was desirous of preserving my energy for the shooting and walking home part of the exercise.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was humid and misty, with a tepid breeze. As I’ve mentioned in the past, high clouds and mist usually make for interesting sunsets.
One scuttled up the ramp, which took me high up onto the Kosciuszcko Bridge’s crossing of Newtown Creek between Brooklyn and Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m trying to soak in all of this splendor while I still can, before I move out of NYC at the end of the year. You really do not get to see sights like this anywhere else.
Thank god.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A solid deck of clouds had risen out of New Jersey just as I reached the spot I’d decided to shoot from. Regardless, I was committed to the labor and set up the camera for “landscape” modality.
I got busy, a clickin and a whirring.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A sudden break in the cloud cover appeared, and a series of adjustments to composition and camera settings was thereby triggered.
Nimble, quick, ready to jump a candlestick – that’s me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Bam! All of a sudden, NYC was painted in apocalyptic hue. This is the sort of thing which I left Our Lady of the Pentacle at home all by herself for to get out and capture.
More tomorrow – 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.
nimbus over
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mentioned yesterday, the building pictured above sits on the site of the first large scale petroleum refinery in the United States. It later became known as the Standard Oil Queens County Oil Works, but the original 1854 facility and its founder are described in this post from 2014.
Truth be told, on this particular evening, I wasn’t in “history” mode, instead I was focused in on taking pretty pictures of ugly things.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot looks north, across Newtown Creek and at Queens, along the line which the Brooklyn Queens Expressway travels along between LIC’s Blissville section on the left, and Maspeth’s “West Maspeth” section on the right.
The BQE is sited along what was formerly (1870-1898) the legal line between the municipality of Long Island City and Newtown’s Village of Maspeth. Maybe it was already the “Town of Maspeth” back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries… something I’m not sure of, speaking in a purely calendrical manner.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back on the walkway of the Kosciuszcko Bridge, and once again setup with the tripod and all the other gear, I got busy.
You have never ending vibration problems up there, due to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway traffic running behind you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You can really feel it when a heavy truck rolls by at speed up there, and mid span there’s a discernible flex when one shouts by. It’s not at all disconcerting, but it’s a factor if you’re doing a longish exposure up there as the vibration can transmit up the tripod and shake the camera.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For some reason… ahem… the bridge’s fences offer apertures just big enough for me to slide my favorite lens through… ahem…
There’s a trick to shooting up here which revolves around making sure that neither the tripod legs nor the lens are making the slightest physical contact with the fence, as it transmits the traffic vibration.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Satisfied that I had actually made it worth getting up that morning by doing something useful and fun, I packed up the bag and headed back to HQ.
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.
glistening with
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On March 30th, a Wednesday which also happened to be the anniversary of the Queensboro Bridge opening in 1909, a humble narrator scuttled over to the Koscisuzcko Bridge from Astoria hoping to encounter a nice sunset over the fabulous Newtown Creek.
High clouds equal a fifty/fifty chance of a light show at sunset, so I decided to throw the dice.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One had planned in a bit of buffer time for this effort, and I had a couple of hours to wander around and see what I could see.
Looking down from on high at the ragged coastline of the Borough of Queens, in the shot above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
More of that ragged coastline, pictured is the Queens landing of the former Penny Bridge. There also used to be a Long Island Railroad stop down there.
Heading south on the K-bridge, one crossed the line into Brooklyn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a couple of large waste transfer stations down there, and the managers of the one pictured above never fail to hassle me when I’m taking pictures of them on the street. Ever since the walkway on the bridge has been open, I now make it a point of cracking put a few exposures.
Humps.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Down under the Kosciuszko Bridge Onramp in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section, this burned out semi truck was noticed.
I thrive on other people’s misfortunes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the newish “Under the K bridge park” in Greenpoint, and looking towards Queens at the site of the first large scale petroleum refinery in the entire country over in Queens’ Blissville section, and across the fabulous Newtown Creek.
When the sky started getting colorful, I got ready to head back to a point of elevation on the walkway above.
“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.
langorously under
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My long walk on March 14th continued along Newtown Creek, and I visited all of favorite places west of 48th street. Vainglorious thoughts cause me to refer to my circumlocutions of the Newtown Creek as a “patrol.” Irregular in schedule, it seems that about every six weeks or so, I walk the entire shoreline of the waterway, and have done so for nearly fifteen years now.
I really should have gotten into building model airplanes or something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Dark and lonely is the way I like it. Sure, there are passing cars and trucks, but I’m the only pedestrian usually. It’s actually a bit surreal, truth be told. Moving about in the veritable geographic center of NYC, and more often than not – complete and utter solitude.
It’s been a panacea during the pandemic, I tell’s ya.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I grew up without siblings, so being alone is normal for me. Unfortunately, what’s going through my mind during these long walks is a non stop review of all of my failings. I really work myself over psychologically during these long walks. Why? Well, even if your Jewish mother is dead, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do to yourself what she used to do and rake yourself over the coals for every mistake you’ve ever made dating back to potty training.
A particular quirk of mine involves the way my memory works. I don’t remember anything good that I’ve done or said, instead the milestones in my psychological roadmap revolve around failure.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sleights or arguments – those stick around. Complimentary relationships or personal victories are soon forgotten. I’ve gotten better about this stuff as I’ve gotten older, but in my late 20’s and early 30’s it was crippling to exist behind these eyes and between the ears. On this particular walk, I was processing painful memories retained from when I was in Junior High School. Pedantic, huh?
For the curious – I remember being embarrassed, and hoping that nobody who has ever met me as an adult would find out about that time in 7th grade when I decided to wear a pair of “Tale Lord” jeans to school and was roundly mocked for months about it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recently, I was reminded by a cousin of the great esteem one used to espouse for the band “U2,” in my senior year of high school. Given that I barely listen to that outfit anymore, but still stand behind the statement that the albums “Boy” and “War” were pretty great, I grew embarrassed about that too. Working myself over about all of the stupid things I’ve said and thought over the years…
Part of this thought process revolves around the aging process. We are all different people at different times in our lives, and the trick is to accept that as the years stack up that you’ve evolved – hopefully. That trick eludes me as – since mentioned – my focus and lattice of memories are built on a foundation of professional and personal mistakes, and saying exactly the wrong thing at exactly the right time. My internal Jewish Mother will never let me forget about failures.
You’re supposed to succeed, what do you want, a medal? Mr. Big Shot, remember the time you shit your pants when you were at cousin Nancy’s first wedding in Washington when you were 4? Your father was so embarrassed he had indigestion for the entire Carter administration. What about the time you…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Saying all that, I positively feed upon all of this ennui. Wouldn’t do it to myself if it didn’t have some positive effect, right? Maybe it’s why I work so hard and so often. Why I strive to try and not be a Dick.
Tomorrow – something completely different, 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 