Posts Tagged ‘photowalk’
All cars are street cars… just sayin
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Christmas Day is when these shots of the ‘T’ streetcar, speeding through the Borough of Dormont here in the Pittsburgh Metropole, were shot. Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself had met up with neighborhood friends at the local dive bar for a few holiday drinks.
Me? It was actually somewhat bright outside and I couldn’t help but wander about a bit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The T pictured above and below is a Siemens SD-400 model streetcar, which runs on Pennsylvania Trolley Gauge tracks. These are facts I learned by visiting a detailed and nicely researched post found at tramreview.com.
These streetcars replaced a fleet of earlier and ‘proper’ Trolley cars. I’m planning on heading over to the PA. Trolley Museum at some point in the coming months to learn more.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was nice having a little get together with the neighbors on Christmas, and also getting a few belts in during the early afternoon.
Day drinking, amirite?
It ain’t the 7 train, the ‘T,’ but I find it pretty interesting. Still haven’t taken a bus or checked out Pittsburgh’s ‘Bus ways.’
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.
Hot Metal Night
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Hot Metal Bridge pictured above, and the pathway I was walking here in Pittsburgh was described in this post from February of last year. The burning thermonuclear eye of God itself had slid away from the vault of the sky, and since there really isn’t an extended period of ‘dusk’ in these parts – it gets dark fast. Snap your fingers and ‘boom’ it’s suddenly night time.
I’ve been hankering to do some ‘night work’ again, at any rate, which is something that’s not been on my menu for a while.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I didn’t have any of the equipment normally used for such pursuits along with me on this walk (tripod etc.), rather I was packing a kit of prime lenses so the captures had to be handheld.
No problem there. The prime lenses I had with me are all ‘bright’ with the capability of large apertures. The ‘darkest’ lens I had with me was f2.8 wide open, and the rest ranged from f2 to f1.8 with a couple of them also offering image stabilizer technology. My camera has a built in sensor stabilizer, so coupled with a stabilized lens, that gives me around 6-8 stops worth of wiggle room.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After having walked the Three Rivers Heritage trail from downtown Pittsburgh, alongside the north shore of the Monongahela River, my crossing back to the south side of the waterway was accomplished via the Hot Metal Bridge – a former rail bridge which once connected two sides of a steel mill and has been converted over to automobile/bike/pedestrian usage in modernity.
It got darker with every step I took, which sounds like a metaphor for my entire life, but there we are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the right side of the shot above is a high technology focused office park where several corporate entities are based. Carnegie Mellon has a building in there too. All sorts of robotics research, work on self driving cars, and other fairly terrifying advancements are being created and tested therein. The land used to be the property of that former steel mill which the Hot Metal Bridge was a part of.
To my eyes, Pittsburgh has done a lot better with its ‘post industrial landscape’ than NYC has. If this was Brooklyn, those buildings with their hundreds of high paying technology jobs would be empty condo buildings full of ‘pied a terre’ apartments that rich suburbanites use as crash pads when they’re in the City, and rent out as AirBNB’s when they’re not.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Birmingham Bridge at center of the shot above, a span which I recently walked over and offered a post about a few weeks ago, with Downtown Pittsburgh rising up behind it.
Luckily, I’d be taking a ride share home this particular evening, as I was heading towards a pub with a pretty excellent bar menu for a dinner date with Our Lady of the Pentacle. This was pretty exciting stuff for us, as we’ve become ‘dirty rotten stay at homes’ since moving out here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The lifestyle we’re experiencing here in Pittsburgh is domestically focused, and it’s rare that we even get takeout or go to a restaurant for a meal, or go to a bar when we want to have a drink. Generally, it’s meals at home and stocking up at a supermarket about once a week. The isolation is splendid, but every now and then – usually about once every week, or week and a half, we force ourselves out for some diversion.
This is, of course, a real departure from life in NYC with its tiny kitchens that lack automatic dishwashers or food preparation space, and a multitude of take out options.
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.
Glass, & Ceratops Quīnquāgintā Septem
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pittsburgh does a ‘Holiday Market’ dealie near the PPG tower, which is a castellated office building complex that was designed by architect Philip Johnson. Johnson was a guy who would regularly cast stones, even though he literally lived in a glass house for 58 years.
Personally, I’m not really a fan of Johnson’s sterility architecture, as his installations generally create urban deserts around the buildings, blighting any sort of organic street life in an antiseptic and uninviting order. I prefer the chaos of urban heterogeneity, me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An ice skating rink is set up in the ‘plaza’ of PPG Place for the Holiday Season, and locals drive in from extant points to indulge. Our Lady of the Pentacle wished to visit a nearby holiday market which was set up a block or two away.
While there, I was closely watching her every move and mentally recording whatever she reacted to positively, as far as the holiday market’s offerings. All of this was in the name of filling her Christmas Stocking, of course, so when I revisited the spot a couple of days later…
On this particular day, however, our sole purchase was a bottle of mull wine, which we would serve at a holiday gathering for a couple of the new neighbors back at HQ.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A statuary display of a Ceratops Quīnquāgintā Septem (that’s how you’d pronounce the number 57 in Latin) or perhaps it was a Heinz Triceratops, was on holiday display nearby the entrance to the PPG tower.
PPG stands for ‘Pittsburgh Plate Glass’ just in case you’re curious. They’re one of Pittsburgh’s ‘anchor’ companies, born and bred.
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.
Maritime Monongahela
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily enough, while this wandering mendicant and humble narrator was crossing Pittsburgh’s Smithfield Street Bridge, spanning the Monongahela River, a towboat and barge setup suddenly appeared.
I’ve been missing the act of photographing maritime action lately, so… I got a-clickin with the camera.
That’s the Darlane B Towboat – you can read its ‘specs’ and history here – and she was navigating westerly under the Panhandle Rail Bridge. Joyously, there was also a T streetcar riding on the Panhandle as the boat moved under it. That T was, in turn, heading southwards out of the First Avenue Station and across the ‘Mon’ towards the Station Square stop at the foot of Mount Washington.
Ultimately, that’s where I was heading to, too.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was one of those days where I’m carrying only prime lenses rather than zooms and traveling light with a minimum ‘kit.’ For this one I used the 85mm lens, which was the closest thing to a telephoto that I had with me.
Sated by my peregrinations thereby, I crossed the Smithfield Street Bridge over to the south side of the river where the T Station is found, to catch my ride back to HQ.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The T streetcar was boarded, and one soon found himself back in the Borough of Dormont, some five or so miles away from the center of the city. While walking downhill and back to HQ, one soliloquized that an absolutely spectacular sunset had set itself up. Couldn’t resist cracking out a few shots, thereby, of this celestial display.
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.
Existential scuttling
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Those old Christmas season cartoons – the stop motion animation ones from Rankin Bass – they had one heck of a sound track, if you ask me. The Heat/Cold Miser song, in particular, as well as the one from Santa’s origin story which bucked up the Winter Warlock’s mood by suggesting that if you ‘put one foot in front of the other, soon you’ll be walking out the door,’ are tunes that always seem to always actively dwell in my mind.
So does The Who’s ‘Don’t get fooled again’ but that ditty exists in a different mental folder.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in prior posts, the particular scuttle during which these shots were gathered wasn’t aimed at any one spot. I was straight up wandering, with intent revolving around getting from one T streetcar station on the north side of the Allegheny River to another one on the south side of the Monongahela River, via the peninsular ‘Downtown’ section of the Pittsburgh. Exploring, essentially.
I will admit to becoming somewhat intrigued by the flatiron shaped brick building pictured above, with its ornate lintels and terracotta decoration. I’m going to have to look into that one at some point.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pittsburgh’s Smithfield Street Bridge, over the Monongahela River, is fascinating to this NYC transplant. Well… beyond being how I got from one side of the river to the other, where the T station is.
The piers and masonry of the bridge were designed by none other than John Roebling (Brooklyn Bridge), and the steel upper section of the bridge was created by Gustav Lindenthal (Queensboro Bridge).
…put one foot in front of the other…
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 