Posts Tagged ‘Ice and snow’
Squall Scuttling
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was a Sunday. Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself were along Pittsburgh’s Carson Street, having brunch with a few friends. The weather report warned of snow squalls and inclement weather approaching. After the meal, everybody else hopped into their cars to head to other destinations, whereas I announced that ‘I’m going for a walk.’ Our Lady departed with the others.
‘Are you sure’ they all asked, and reminded me about the forecast. I was sure. I had just eaten a bacon cheeseburger for breakfast, and needed to ‘earn’ the many fat calories it deposited within.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was awful out. Lots of wind, and bands of snow which produced instant white out conditions. I was wearing my warm coat, not the street cassock (aka filthy black raincoat) that’s normally utilized as my outer shell. The warm coat is a Carhartt with a temperature rating, whereas the street cassock is a military surplus navy policeman’s overcoat with a zip-in lining made of synthetic wool. One of the first things I did when moving out here was buy a warmer coat. This ain’t New York.
The street cassock is ideal for 90% of the weather I encounter in Pittsburgh, but when a bone chilling interval of midwestern winter blows in from Ohio and then just lingers… you need a stouter level of insulation. I was carrying my minimum kit camera bag, the contents of which I’ve described several times in the past.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One headed over to the waterfront trail which mirrors the shoreline of the Monongahela River, as that’s really where you’d want to be during near blizzard conditions. It’s logical, right?
Thing is, when you’re following your camera lens around, comfort isn’t one of the things that you’re building into the plan. If you want to get your shots, there might be some frostbite or heat stroke involved, so get used to discomfort. The outside world ain’t a studio, with controlled lighting and skinny art school chicks milling about. Get out there, suffer a bit…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I had to reel back a few episodes, in my relistening of ‘The History of Rome’ by podcaster Mike Duncan, as I had literally not been paying much attention to the entire sequence of ‘Tiberius to Caligula to Claudius’ episodes on my last session, despite having them playing in my ear holes. Sometimes it’s just noise that’s playing through my headphones, which replaces the inner voice dialog about how shit I am.
I’m still staggered by that survey a few months back in which about 40% of Americans reported that they did not experience an ‘inner voice,’ and that about 20% of Americans reported that their inner voices were actually either devils or angels talking to them.
Wow. Internal dialogue is often all I’ve got…
Me? When you start a conversation with ole Mitch, I’m already ‘gaming’ your binary responses to arguments which you might counter an assertion with. Am I the only one who thinks through ‘if they say yes, we do this. If they say no, we’ll react this way instead? Game theory? Anyone? Inner voice reacting silently to things while the outer voice says things diplomatically?
This is why I’m lonely.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
South 10th street bridge, pictured above. I was heading towards that brewery I hang around by the train tracks, but this wasn’t going to be a ‘get a drink’ sort of day due to the inclement clime. I was ‘pretty hep’ on getting a few shots of a CSX train in the snow, should the universe decide to give me something that I wanted. Bah!
Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was positively horrible out. Windy, cold, blowing snow everywhere. My toes and fingers were numb. The eyes were weeping.
I was so happy.
Back 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.
Refrigeration, writ large
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The weather has been atrocious, cold and wet, here in Pittsburgh.
Nevertheless, if your humble narrator stops moving he’ll stop moving permanently, so the pre-corpse was wrapped up in layers of insulation and the camera batteries charged up. Whoopity boop, and I’m outside.
Pictured is the view from midway up the steep hill that I live at the bottom of, which – come to think of it – is a great metaphor for my entire experience of life. One starts everyday at ‘zero,’ and then try to work my way back up. Whatever it was that I had achieved the day before is always forgotten about by those around me, so thusly I start the next day as a reborn and quite ignorant man child that needs to prove his worth by deed and intention.
As I’m writing this post, it’s still December. New Years is still a few days out at this interval. A short break was taken for the winter holidays, which ate up a bunch of my ‘lead time’ on these posts, something that I’ve been boasting about. I’ll catch back up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is Pittsburgh’s Dormont, where HQ is found. There are no ‘mean streets here’ as all the roads are avenues. Seriously, that’s a ‘thing.’
It had been fiendishly cold for a bit, then it snowed abominably. The day these shots were captured offered atmospherics that were chilly, but tolerable. There would be an opportunity for socializing with the humans later in the day, but at this interval I needed to take a short walk and stretch out the chords and rubber bands in the roadway interface. Everything was ‘clicky’ and popping.
Too much sitting, and shoving calorie rich things into the mouth, happens during the holidays – yo. I feel like a goose that’s been farm fattened up for foie gras.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I think the scene above revolved around a house fire. I smelled wood smoke, at least.
Luckily for the people affected, the Dormont fire dept. is literally a block away from that far corner. If this was Astoria, I would have felt compelled to ‘yenta’ my way in and find out the story, but here in Dormont? Not so much. I keep to myself these days, and avoid as much contact with the humans as possible. Fractious creatures, the infestation, and given to fits of passion.
The last few years have seen me becoming less and less involved with others, and far more numb emotionally. I seem to have lost the ability to care overly about strangers. A lot of this has to do with the current state of national politics, incidentally, wherein the current dominars emphasize and celebrate cruel selfishness and group affiliations at the expense of the weak and vulnerable, whom they describe in derogatory ways. It darkens my mood to see the humans behaving so brutally towards each other, over meaningless political word salads.
Judge not lest ye be judged, or something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is one of Dormont’s ‘way’ streets, which are alleys.
It seems that a century or so ago, when Dormont was being developed, this ‘no streets’ thing was a part of the ‘sell’ which the Real Estate Industrial Complex of the time used to lure people into moving all the way out into the ‘country.’ No ‘mean streets’ or ‘dark alleys’ for your kids to get involved with the ‘wrong sort’ in, out here as opposed to over there. Dormont is about 5 miles out from downtown Pittsburgh, as a note.
Me? I met up with Our Lady of the Pentacle and a few friends for holiday drinks and ribald conversation. Fun. That was at the end of this short walk. Maybe three miles in total, just a ‘stretch my legs’ sort of thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Mobile Oppression Platform, a Toyota, requires warranty dictated service visits at our local ‘stealership.’ They change out the juices and ichors, attach a computer that talks to the car and figures out if anything’s wrong which needs to be dealt with, rotate the tires – all that. Basically three hours of sitting around for me, starting at 8:30 in the morning.
A not insignificant amount of snow had appeared the night before, and the universal viewpoint on this weather event seemed to be that the city of Pittsburgh had ‘shit the bed,’ regarding roadway maintenance and snow management. It was quite slippery out.
The MOP was pronounced as continuing in fine fettle by the mechanics.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just a couple of days later, it started snowing again. This photo was shot through the windshield of the MOP, while sitting at a red light, hence the tint of the photo. I don’t even remember where I was when this was captured. Usually when I’m in the car by myself, the camera and bag are sitting on the passenger seat, and at the ready.
Back tomorrow with something 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.
It’s like Ragnarok
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Even Moe the Dog is sick of all this winter weather we keep getting plastered by, out here in Pittsburgh. As I’m writing this, it’s currently 8 degrees Fahrenheit and frozen snow pack is everywhere you look. Quite obviously, your humble narrator has been sheltering in place, a task made easy by the fact that we had baked a Lasagna on Friday and thereby didn’t have to worry about ‘what’s for dinner’ for a couple of days.
Really put a crimp in my plans for the weekend, this snow, unfortunately. Bad weather has become a personal affront to me, as I’m positively antsy to get out of the house and be outside with the camera. Instead, I’m stuck.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s pretty, the snow, I’ll give you that. It’s also difficult to walk around on, even without having to worry about your ankle. The current batch is a crunchy white powder which is floating on top of a layer of ice formed from wet slush. This snow event started as a rain storm before the temperatures dropped, so there’s hard pack ice under the powder. No bueno.
By the way, apologies for a mistake that was published yesterday and quickly corrected – I identified yesterday’s holiday as Martin Luther King Day rather than President’s day. Oops. There was some conversation in the comments about this particular holiday, which seems to be suddenly controversial. When did that become a thing?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My splendid isolation period is coming to an end, I’m afraid. It’s time for me to reactivate and get back to my various pursuits. A lecture on the Monongahela Incline will be attended this very evening, for instance.
Moe is not at all happy about this, as it will interrupt the flow of treats into his shovel face if Daddy’s not there to buy his affections.
Back 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.
In the shadows on the Shadyside
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the central triangle section of Pittsburgh, where it widens out, there’s a fancy pants neighborhood called Shadyside. It’s always been a wealthy area, but ‘back in the day’ this was where the Robber Baron era Millionaires dwelt. There’s still a series of enormous and thoughtfully built mansion buildings there, and it’s largely a residential neighborhood. The universities are nearby, and a number of these mansions have become public spaces of one kind or another – museums, galleries, etc. in modernity.
Our Lady of the Pentacle signed up for a class held at one of these mansions recently, and your humble narrator was providing her with transportation. After dropping her off, I couldn’t help but set up the tripod and get a few night shots.
I haven’t done low light in a long while, and I’ve missed it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Can’t say too much about Shadyside, as I haven’t put any study or walking time into it yet, but everytime I’m driving through this zone I add another church or location to my list of places that I plan on bringing the camera to someday.
It’s – architecturally speaking – a quite interesting neighborhood.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The night was cold, so I didn’t stick around overly, just long enough to crack out a few shots before climbing back into the Mobile Oppression Platform and driving back home to Moe the Dog. Our Lady got home under her own steam after her class ended. Her return to HQ greatly excited the dog.
Back tomorrow with something 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.
As below, so above
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After capturing shots of the frozen rivers, here in Pittsburgh, at the shoreline level nearby the Mr. Rogers monument on the Allegheny River, your humble narrator headed back to his Mobile Oppression Platform, and set out to West End Overlook Park to take in the whole scene. Wow.
The Monongahela River comes up from the south via West Virginia, so its waters are warmer than those of the Allegheny, which starts its journey to the north in the State of New York, near Kinzua.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Ohio River pictured above, which mixes the first two waterways into a third. I’m told that the Corps of Engineers does ice breaking with a series of second party partners here, but I keep on hoping to see a black hull Coast Guard boat busting through. I seem to recall that it was eight degrees Fahrenheit that afternoon.
Your humble narrator was freezing and it was time to head back to the MOP, a Toyota. The thing was activated, and the heat turned up high. I settled into my station and began navigating. I eventually had to head over to a different section of Pittsburgh for yet another PT session, but was glad of being able to capture this phenomena.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you’d imagine, in a place renowned for its overlook park, the town of West End/Elliot is huddled up against a steep hill which plateaus at the overlook. This was the view of that particular milieu, as I was driving back down to the valley level, where a series of roadway interchanges awaited me. It was yet another ‘PT’ day, after all.
Back 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 