Posts Tagged ‘Monongahela River’
Carrie on, wayward son
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I do wish that my knowledge base was broad enough to describe the purpose of the various ruinations on display at Pittsburgh’s Carrie Furnace in detail, or even in some sort of broad summary. I am proud that I’m intelligent enough to admit ignorance and say ‘I dunno.’
That’s always been the mark of a ‘smartie’ to me, somebody who’s willing to confess ignorance on a new topic. Stupid people make stuff up, and don’t ask questions, in my estimation.
I also wish that there was some sort of guide book which I could refer to here, but then again – I haven’t taken any of the River of Steel people’s guided tours of the site so maybe there is one. At any rate, as a ‘dirty rotten know it all’ it’s a genuine pleasure to not know things.
This is something about living in Pittsburgh which has been wonderful – novelty, and discovery.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What I can tell you is that this former steel mill is a genuine ruin. It feels a bit like visiting the Acropolis in Athens, or a Mayan pyramid in Mexico, or even wandering the Brooklyn/Queens waterfront in the late 20th century. There used to be giants here, as the saying goes.
I’ve visited the Carrie Furnace campus a few times now, and have just purchased a ticket to return on the evening of May 19th for the ‘sunset photo safari.’ Who wants to bet that it’ll be raining on that particular day?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These are all ‘tripod shots,’ as mentioned yesterday. You can certainly get away with handheld camera technique here, but I was desirous of capturing every little detail, pebble, and fleck of rust. It’s also a ‘controlled’ circumstance where you’ve got time to get fancy without having to watch your back.
The doors opened at 10 a.m., on a Sunday. I woke up early, in order to inhale a few cups of coffee and eat breakfast, which is a prerequisite for me getting busy in the early part of the day. I’m normally a late afternoon, blue hour, and night time shooter so mornings ‘ain’t usually my bag.’
I’m famously an owl, not a lark.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Use was made of the fantastic little flashlight I’ve started carrying – the Nitecore T4K. It allows short bursts of 4,000 lumens of light, which allows me to leave the flash gun at home. This burst feature takes the place of a strobe and I’m able to put some bright light where I want it pretty easily, although it’s a bit of guess work to figure out how long to depress the actuator on the thing.
In normal flashlight mode, it’s got a clip which allows for attachment to the bill of my ball cap and it functions like a head lamp. The thing is also usb-c rechargeable which is a major plus. Recommended.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Several of the internal rooms at Carrie were open this time for casual inspection, and one took advantage of the opportunity. As mentioned above, I’d be speculating about ‘what’s what’ in this space, so I’ll avoid the temptation other than offering a vague suspicion about this equipment somehow involving gas.
Luckily, my early strategy of moving far away from the group of other photographers paid off and I had about good amount of time in this chamber all by myself.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Here’s one of the spots where that Nitecore flashlight was super useful, as everything was positively bathed in shadow. I also used the exposure stacking technique, mentioned yesterday, which allowed for some detail to pop and materialize out of the darkness.
More tomorrow.
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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.
Widdershins at Carrie Furnace
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Rivers of Steel outfit, over in Pittsburgh’s Swissvale section, recently announced a couple of opportunities to visit the Carrie Furnace site for participating in a ‘photo safari.’ It cost me $35 to gain entry to this event, which I gladly forked over.
A quick half hour drive from HQ ensued, early on a Sunday morning, and soon I was wearing a hard hat and entering the property lines of a former steel mill, located on the northern bank of the Monongahela River.
The place is a literal ruin, and there’s several safety requirements that attendees are required to oblige. None of these rules are onerous, I’d mention, especially as compared to various industrial sites which I’ve visited over the years – like the Sewer Plant in Brooklyn, or SimsMetal in Queens – both of which are found along the fabulous Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a still active steel mill just down the river in a community called Braddock, and freight rail servicing the operations were spotted all morning moving just beyond Carrie’s fence lines. That’s CSX #4288 pictured above, heading towards a bridge nearby the Homestead Pump House site, and over the water to the southern bank of the Monongahela.
I’ve been to Carrie Furnace a couple of times now, and have discerned that the vast majority of attendees to these ‘photo safari’s’ seem to cluster around the first thing they see, which is – admittedly – pretty spectacular.
My plan for the morning was to get away from the madding crowd and start where most of them end, moving in a widdershins direction.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I walked the length of the property, to get to the beginning of the effort, and couldn’t resist a few shots of this crane truck. The Rivers of Steel outfit uses some of the cash from these public events to maintain and preserve the ruins here, large sections of which are in a fairly sorry state and structurally unsound. The crane truck is part of an operation to stabilize things.
My understanding of things is that Carrie was a part of the massive U.S. Steel Homestead mill, once the largest such industrial operation on the planet. The predominant section of the mill was across the river in the community which lent it the name ‘Homestead,’ but operations were spread out all over the place.
Just ask the Rivers of Steel people, they’ll tell you the whole tale of the place; the Empire State Building, and the Brooklyn Bridge, and most of Manhattan and Chicago’s skyscrapers, the rebuild of the Pacific Naval fleet after Pearl Harbor – all were accomplished with metals forged here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a long corridor, and it would be vainglory for me to try and describe its purpose, that I haven’t paid much attention to in past visits. I thereby set up the tripod, and got busy.
This is definitely a ‘tripod’ sort of place to shoot, inside a structure with terrific amounts of industrial and architectural detail. The challenge here involves contrast, as it was relatively early in the morning and the light was harsh. At night, it would be a ‘set it and forget it’ sort of thing with long exposures.
Instead I had to rely on following the ‘focus and exposure stacking’ technique, which allowed me to compensate for the contrast.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Rivers of Steel operation sets out ‘no-go’ areas that are delineated by yellow safety tape and plastic chains. This one (and the shot below) was captured at the perimeter of one of these borders. The reason for the restriction involves the stability of the surrounding structure, which is what the people who operate that crane truck have been brought in to address.
I received a caution from one of the group’s volunteers while capturing these that I had nearly wandered too far.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Since I was shooting in pursuance of stacking the images, I used an F4 aperture at ISO 100 and moved the point of focus around while altering the exposure time. When combined, the multiple images created an aperture equivalent of F24. Exposure times were in the 3-6 second range, but when the image was compiled this added up to about 24-30 seconds of light.
Back tomorrow with more.
“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.
A heck of a hill
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After having descended along the German Square stairs as described in prior posts, a humble narrator found himself in Pittsburgh’s South Side Flats neighborhood. This ‘zone’ is pretty urban in character, and ‘old timey’ in terms of its building stock. I’m of the belief that there’s a ‘historic district’ rule which applies to certain sections of the Flats, but as I’m trying to avoid deep dives into historical records these days…
This shot looks towards the Monongahela River and the South Tenth Street Bridge, and that’s one of Duquesne University’s buildings rising out of the bluff on the other side of the river.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Closer to the shoreline, and looking back towards the prominence which I had just descended from – that’s one heck of a hill, ain’t it?
My goal for the remainder of this scuttle involved getting close to the water, and grabbing a pint of beer at that brewery alongside the CSX trackage which has been mentioned several times.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While quaffing my Pilsner, I noticed a towboat navigating the Monongahela and passing under the Liberty Bridge. As you can tell, the sun was in the early stages of setting. Nice light.
I would be taking the T light rail back to HQ, which ain’t really that much of an adventure but hey – I love the novelty of surface based rail transit through an urban space.
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.
Pittsburgh Parade
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
More than once, I’ve described the POV above as being ‘magic’ except for the empty railroad tracks. This time around, I got lucky and a CSX train entered the frame, shortly after I had walked over the Fort Pitt Bridge which is the golden colored span in the shot. They take their city color branding pretty seriously out here in Pittsburgh, all the way to dressing the cops up in black and gold.
This was captured close to the end of a medium sized walk, but I sure wasn’t done yet as it was a positively gorgeous spring like day – weather wise. Everything is starting to bloom here in the Paris of Appalachia, as a note.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was so pleased with the situation that the need to go wide angle overwhelmed. There was still a mile or two in front of me before I could declare the day’s goal accomplished, but that’s always the case – ain’t it? Nothing’s easy.
The train moved on, and so did I. I had already decided to visit that brewery I like which is alongside the same CSX tracks pictured above, and grab a pint of Pilsner – strictly in the name of hydration, I assure you – before returning to the T light rail which would bring me back to HQ where Our Lady of the Pentacle and Moe the Dog awaited.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Moe, for those of you who have asked, has matured nicely and acquired a beginners kit of domestic manners. It’s been a long while since his puppy incarnation was wreaking havoc and biting me in the crotch, thankfully.
After debarking the bridge’s pedestrian pathway, one navigated to a primary arterial street called ‘West Carson Street’ whose somewhat terrifying sidewalks led me to a spot where I could hop a fence and access the Three Rivers Heritage Trail, which follows the Monongahela River’s southern shoreline.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lucky day for me. A Tugboat appeared, which was guiding barges of (presumptively) coal up the ‘Mon’ river, and under the bridge I had just walked over, with downtown Pittsburgh serving up a back drop.
I’m continually surprised at how much maritime traffic you see on the rivers here. I was also surprised to see that this boat was configured as a harbor style pushboat tug, rather than as a river Towboat, with the latter typology far more commonly observed here than the former.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
With winter ending, and spring starting to spring up, I’m looking forward to hiking in natural settings again. This sort of thing isn’t terribly productive from a photography POV (look, it’s a tree), but natural surfaces and paths through wooded areas are still quite novel to this kid from Brooklyn’s Canarsie.
As a note: I always say ‘Canarsie’ because people are somewhat familiar with that ‘area.’ My actual Brooklyn neighborhood – believe it or not – was called ‘Futurama,’ which is literally right next door to Canarsie. It’s nestled between ‘Old Mill Basin,’ ‘Georgetown,’ ‘Flatlands,’ ‘Glenwood,’ and Canarsie – Futurama is. If you’re not from there, these places aren’t on your radar, at all. My high school was found at the front door of Canarsie (Ralph and Flatlands Avenues), and most of my high school friends were ‘Canartians.’ South east Brooklyn was an odd place to live in the 1980’s.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One followed the trail, to his glass of beer at that brewery alongside the CSX tracks which has often been mentioned here. I met up with a friend whom I haven’t seen in a few months, and wouldn’t you know it… Choo Choo…
More on that next week – 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.
I spy, with my little eye…
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Walking over the Fort Pitt Bridge spanning the Monongahela River, here in Pittsburgh, and on one of my many constitutional walks – a humble narrator was feeling a bit ‘meh.’ The part of me that somehow misses NYC was issued a ‘shut the hell up’ order by my internal judge and jury after returning back to the nest at the beginning of February, but I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t miss my friends and a certain waterway.
Truth be told, what I really miss was the easy familiarity of the place which I enjoyed through long habitation. One never had to wander too far before something cool was in front of the camera. Sunnyside Yards, Newtown Creek’s industrial zone… heck, when I was bored or feeling a bit sore I’d just go ride the 7 train and crack out a few shots of the trains coming and going at one of its stations.
Most photogenic subway line in NYC, I always said.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pittsburgh is great, mind you, but I’ve had a frustrating couple of months due to the winter weather coupled with an onset of various physical maladies – like arthritis – that limit what I can do during the extreme cold and wet season. Now that’s it’s warming up again… well… it looks like I’m going to have to order another pair of hiking boots as I seem to have shaved about a half inch of the sole away from the pair I’ve been using, just in the last few weeks. My shoe brand is Merrell, if you’re wondering. Used to be sneakers, but I’d wear out a pair of Nikes in about three weeks and soon find myself scuttling along on bald treads. I get about 6-7 months out of a pair of Merrell’s.
The shot above looks back at where I’d been. Foreground is occupied by the Fort Pitt Bridge, which is also depicted in the first shot. Way in the background left area is the Fort Duquesne Bridge which was discussed earlier this week. About a half to 3/4 of a mile behind that is the T light rail station where I started this particular walk. About 400 miles beyond the horizon is the Empire State Building.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The span above is the West End Bridge, which I frequently cross both on foot and in the car. The presence of a CSX train set on that curvilinear track is something I’ve been hoping to see for a while now. Even better news is that the train was being held in place, which I was able to discern by reading the lights on those signal posts. A rapid bit of scuttling ensued to an opportune spot, as there’s a shot which I’ve been desirous of collecting in that particular location.
More on all that 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 