Posts Tagged ‘Dutch Kills’
and beyond
LIC and Dutch Kills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Since the Quarantine bubble seems to have autonomously popped last weekend due to the arrival of warm weather, with thousands taking to the streets after the long hermitage, one decided to direct a recent constitutional walk towards the deserted precincts of Newtown Creek. The sidewalks of Astoria were teeming with people, but once I had moved southwards to Northern Blvd. the only traffic encountered was vehicular. That is, until I got to the corner of Honeywell street and Northern, where a wild eyed wackadoodle suddenly appeared who seemed desirous of confrontation with a humble narrator. Either high on goof balls or demented due to a feverish state of mind, the fellow meant me no good, and luckily I managed to brush him off.
As the wackadoodle was walking away, he called me “Pops.”
One continued along his own path, heading towards the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek with the intention of gathering images specifically intended for the focus and exposure stacking techniques which I’ve been experimenting with. To wit, the image above and those below.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Like any other software process involving the capture of raw data using one device which is then processed using a computational algorithm on a second one, reliable result is dependent on predictability. Predictability is formed by experiment. Ideally – You shoot images A, B, C, and then execute steps 1-4 with them on the computer, then you get something you had in mind for the final result. Getting to predictable result, however, requires experimentation, experiential trial and error, etc.
The image above represents something like 24 individual exposures, 12 for the water and 12 for the land, welded together. It’s not a home run, image quality wise. There’s an “uncanny valley” feel to it, but that’s what a learning process often looks like.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The wide open aperture used in all 3 of these shots, wherein the focus point is moved into different areas of the frame, allows for a softer capture of ambient light with “truer” color capture than a narrow aperture does. By combining multiple shots with that point of focus moved through the frame, you can additively assure tack sharp focus through the image, as I’ve discovered. Again, not a home run, but I got on base and possibly stole second.
Normally you’d use this technique in woodland or seaside landscape, or macro photography, and I’m working on making it predictable – as in “I shoot this, I get that.” That predictability is the name of the game, behind the camera.
I’m Pops Waxman, signing out for today. See you tomorrow at this – your Newtown Pentacle. May all your wackadoodles be merry, and all your photos in focus.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, May 18th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates as we move into April and beyond, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
sullen mood
Dutch Kills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge pictured up there, which has been described in excruciating historical detail in many, many past posts. Saying that, I think this is the first time that this particular view of it has been offered. One of the virtues of a certain lens which I’ve mentioned in the past, the Canon 24mm pancake lens, is that it’s tiny size allows me to exploit otherwise unusable gaps in fencing or other visual obstacles. In the case of the shot above, my tripod was set up to lean in towards a chain link fence, holding the lens maybe an eighth of an inch away from it. It took a bit of wiggling to get the lens’s focal to sit right in the center of one of those diamond shaped openings in a standard chain link or “hurricane fence.”
It’s also three different photos combined into one, using a sort of exposure stacking process which Photoshop allows. This is one of the things I’m playing around with in my quarantine dotage. Also doing a bit of focus stacking work, which is interesting to play around with.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s just a normal long exposure shot, above, captured on Borden Avenue near the intersection with Review Avenue. Anybody who knows me will tell you that an oft repeated opine is “NYC never looks as good as it does when it’s wet.” In other words, you have a puddle? I’m shooting it. I also like when it’s just finished raining.
For the last few weeks, the Empire State Building has been flashing fire engine red to honor the medical people and the ambulance corps dealing with the virus. Accordingly, I’ve been trying to get some shots of it all framed up with Long Island City’s various wonders. That’s how I found myself back on Borden Avenue, after all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I shot this one twice, from two different locations. For the alternate view, I used a different lens – the Canon “Nifty” 50mm. Check that out here, if you want.
For some reason, I was having a devil of a time getting the 50mm, which is of significantly older age than the 24mm – design wise – to lock focus on the Empire State. I got it, eventually, but wow did it hunt around a lot. The red lights didn’t register as contrast heavy enough, I’d speculate, or perhaps the IR filter glass inside the sensor was blocking this particular wavelength.
The 24mm found focus almost instantly, in contradiction.
I’m still using the “minimum kit” which I started carrying last year during the broken toe drama – a Canon 7D with an arca rail, a couple of extra batteries and memory cards, a 24mm and a 50mm lens, a cable release, some lens cloths, a safety vest, a rocket blower, a flash light, an ultrapod with a small ball head, and a carbon fiber travel tripod with a ball head. The only other things found in my camera bag at the moment are business cards and a few pieces of chewing gum.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, April 20th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates as we move into April and beyond, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
unaltered bone
A bit of detail at Dutch Kills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One tries to shoot a few abstracted shots in between the sweeping landscape stuff when the camera is up on the tripod. At Dutch Kills the other night, I reminded myself to do so a few times. Check out yesterday’s post for the overview shots, and today’s for the “points of interest” ones. The bulkheads along the 29th street side of the canal have been collapsing into the water for a year or two now, and one particular event carried a self seeded tree down into the water column along with the rip rap and concrete.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The peculiar color of the water at Dutch Kills has always fascinated. I once had a City Council Member in Maspeth ask if I had manipulated an image I was showing her to make it look radioactive, which I should have been offended by the accusation thereof, but given the martian landscape of Newtown Creek… No, I assured Liz Crowley, this is what it looks like. Why she didn’t know that herself, I can only wonder. I have to say, if I was a Council Member, I’d know every square inch of my district like the back of my hand just in the name of not being surprised by anything.
Back to yesterday’s post, I mentioned the abandoned fuel barges at Dutch Kills, one of which is pictured above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Here’s a different view of that collapsed bulkhead, which is a bit of exposed archaeology as to how they filled in and reclaimed land at the start of the 20th century. This area was known as “the Waste Meadows” until the start of the modern era, a tidal wetland renowned for its ability to produce vast clouds of mosquitoes and breed other pests. When the Pennsylvania Railroad Company got busy draining and reclaiming the land which they’d carve the Sunnyside Yards into, the waste meadows were bought up by a real estate speculator and construction guru named Michael Degnon.
The industrial park surrounding Dutch Kills was created, and called the Degnon Terminal. Via Dutch Kills, there was water access, and Degnon built ship to rail facilities which allowed for the transference of cargo from one to the other.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, April 13th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates as we move into April and beyond, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
strained formalities
Ok, now I’m getting a little stir crazy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Something which has happened the last few times that I’ve left the quarantine of HQ for one of my constitutional walks is that before I even realize it, I’m at Dutch Kills. Maybe it’s because Dutch Kills, a tributary of the fabulous Newtown Creek in Long Island City, is a familiar and comfortable place for me. Perhaps it’s the fact that I can get to and from the place via depopulated corridors of illimitable solitude.
At any rate, Dutch Kills is where you can spread my ashes if the virus takes me.
Pictured today is the so called turning basin of Dutch Kills. The waterway averages a distance of about a thousand feet between its bulkheads, except for an area at its terminus, which is shaped like the head of a hammer and was designed to allow maritime traffic a point of easy rotation to reverse course rather than forcing vessels to back out to the main stem of Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Technically speaking, where I was standing while gathering these shots is public land. One of the property owners whose lot adjoins this spot erected fencing around it shortly after Hurricane Sandy. The lock on the fence… well… let’s just say that I know how to open it and that I wasn’t too worried about having to chat with private security during a pandemic. I know, I know. What’s the point of having rules if you never bend them?
That’s an abandoned oil barge, one of two, which have been slowly dissolving into Dutch Kills for decades. It’s been there for the entire time I’ve been on the Newtown Creek beat, and even my buddy from ExxonMobil and the team at EPA have no idea whom these barges used to belong to. These days, they belong to a bunch of Canada Geese who use them to sleep and sun on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These photos were gathered on a full moon night, during which a “king tide” was manifest. What that means is that the water level at high tide was a great deal higher than it normally is. I was reminded of this by one of my chums at Newtown Creek Alliance when I mentioned that I though the barges seemed to be sinking deeper into the mud. Perception, particularly at night is a weird thing.
I’m desperate to get out of “the zone” at the moment, and might just tie my face mask on and go ride on the top deck of the NYC Ferry one of these days – just to be able to focus my eyes on distant objects. I also need some sunlight.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, April 13th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates as we move into April and beyond, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
suitable account
Happy Friday, shut ins.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wandering, always wandering, that’s me. I also formulate questions while walking, along, like “why do the people who have moved into the new developments in Long Island City eschew the use of drapes or Venetian blinds.” Also, while pondering subjects which randomly involve aspects of law, the proper cooking of pork, or societal engineering, one considers both past and future.
The lockdown here in NYC began shortly after the night of a full moon which coincided with Friday the 13th. The Ide of March, I believe, is when the Governor began exerting himself in muscular fashion. It’s now a month later – the Ide of April, as it were – and recent news reports have informed that not only has Krakatoa erupted but there’s also an asteroid which will be passing closely (in celestial terms) past the earth. There’s also a plague of locusts devouring Eastern Africa, but there’s always locusts in East Africa so that’s not really surprising. I’ve got a pot of ram’s blood to paint on my door, just in case the streets begin to fill up with hordes of toads or frogs.
Amphibians come in hordes, no? I know crows come in murders.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One somehow managed to pull off a hand held shot at 1/60th of a second just above, which is a new record for me. Normally, 1/100th is the best I can do on hand held shots before motion blur induced by my breathing and blood circulation obfuscates detail and sharpness.
That’s a near empty LIRR train riding through the Harold Interlocking at the Sunnyside Yards pictured, if you’re the curious type. I am.
Saying that though, my mind is dulling due to all the isolation, and Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself are developing a regional accent particular to our apartment.
Zuzoop the dyg has nary an idear whut we’s be speakins to hur in this new patois, but treats be rain on hur so no worry.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Tripod based exposures continue to be gathered, on the other hand, and a particularly productive walk over to Dutch Kills in Long Island City the other night will be described in some detail next week. It turns out that I had randomly and unintentionally turned up there during a so called “king tide” which saw the turning basin of Dutch Kills full up to the brim with Newtown Creek juices.
There were critters a splishing and a splashing in the darkness, and those disagreeable Canadian Geese are back in town, having ignored all travel restrictions. More on all this next week at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, April 13th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates as we move into April and beyond, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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 