Posts Tagged ‘photowalk’
ruins retained
Just another day in paradise.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One forced himself to sleep early on Saturday last several hours earlier than is customary, given that a humble narrator is legendarily a night owl, and I set my phone’s alarm sound to Curtis Mayfield’s “Pusherman.” If you want to ensure that you don’t sleep through an early alarm, Curtis is your boy, and Pusherman starting playing at 4 a.m. Having prepared my gear bag and laid out clothing the night before, all I had to do was take a quick shower, dress, and drink a cup of coffee. I hit the street at 4:30 a.m. A cab was called, and I was up on the middle of the Kosciuszko Bridge bike and pedestrian pathway by about 5:10 a.m. with a deployed tripod and camera.
A few things got in the way of all this ambition and “chasing the sunrise shot.” The most notable thing was that despite the theatrics surrounding the opening of the span, the NYS DOT is nowhere near done with the construction of the thing and temporary wooden breastworks and walkways with orange construction netting has returned. Said works obscure a significant part of the incredible views up there. Mustn’t grumble, though, still plenty to see and photograph.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Initial forays up on the bridge have revealed a few spots where natural compositions are available for recording, and a bit of early trial and error has indicated what one should watch out for as far as setup of equipment goes. A big issue to conquer involves light pollution coming from below, as the big field lights used by industrial property owners to illuminate their properties cause a lot of scatter which in turn lights up the omnipresent dust and vehicle exhaust hanging about in the atmosphere.
This contrast of bright and dark has been a constant bother throughout the night shooting process at Newtown Creek which I’ve been working on for a while now. It’s also a bit of a chore managing and being conscious of lens flare, but that’s quite normal for me these days. Focusing the lens in pitch darkness is also challenging.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself finally popped out from behind Ridgewood and Maspeth to the east, it looked like things were finally going my way. Unfortunately, as it was a cloudy morning, the directional light was soon obscured behind an enormous flat cloud which stretched from the horizon to mid sky just as the illumination became sculptural. The shot directly following the one above was flat, and bluish in cast, due to that giant cloud bank.
There’s three anticipated shots from up here that I’m chasing. As soon as they remove the temporary construction works and the sky is right, I’ll have them. It just might take a while though. Luckily, I’ve got Cutis Mayfield to wake me up at all hours of the night, and when I’ve got my triptych of shots completed, I’ll feel like Superfly.
“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.
general noisesomeness
Things I’ve seen, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sunday last, the estimable Working Harbor Committee (which I’m proud to be a part of) produced the 2019 Great North River Tugboat Race over on the Hudson River. One had to show up medium early in Manhattan for this one, but a good time was had by all and it was a fairly nice day – weather wise. WHC will be publishing official race results and describing who won what trophy as soon as everyone recovers from the effort.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My pal Val drove into the City for the event, and then gave me a lift home afterwards. While crossing the East River on the Queensboro Bridge, the camera was brandished – as is my habit – and the shot above was collected. Funnily, it reminds me of the opening video scrawl from the ’80s sitcom Taxi.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
First Calvary Cemetery in the Blissville section of Long Island City just before sunset offers long shadows for the itinerant photographer to record, and luckily I was there at a particularly picturesque moment.
Back next week, with more sights.
“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.
gradual provisions
Staying low, and minimal like, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It isn’t easy to avoid other people these days, as the City has become rather crowded. That’s part of the reason I’ve been doing “my thing” at night so much in recent years, I suppose. Avoiding encounters with other people, and their radicalized political views of the world, is nepenthe. My current pet peeve is a phenomena called “virtue signaling,” wherein you’re supposed to espouse sympathy or something for some aggrieved fellow traveler based on their affiliation or perceived membership in some group that receives more than its fair share of societal abuse. This abrogation of the individual is disgusting to me, and my antipathy for modern day “identity politics” is something which a humble narrator has not been shy about.
Just because you’re a homeless poet doesn’t mean you’re not a dick too. I’m sympathetic towards your existential horror and the mean treatment you receive, but all your other qualifiers don’t buy you any special consideration if you’re kicking a dog, breaking into my apartment, or holding up a bodega. Life sucks, toughen up. We’ve all got it bad – disappointments, tragedy, and ennui are part of the human experience. Bah!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
More than ever, one’s generational status has been coming up over and over. My older friends who are “Baby Boomers” decry the “Millennial” crybabies. The “Millennials,” on the other hand, are fairly sure that they invented (amongst other things) alternative lifestyles and bicycle riding. Both groups, whose population cohorts dwarf my “Generation X,” like to lecture and comment about society’s perceived sins and injustices. Both groups start sentences with “You can’t say that,” or “You have to.”
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? How many grains of sand are there in the ocean? Let’s throw a handful of rice in the air and try to count the grains before they fall? How much time do we have to waste discussing crap? To my older peeps – what happened to your empathy? To my juniors – nobody really cares about anything, it’s all a god damned game.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What’s the point of trying then? If the deck is stacked against you, why not curl up into a ball in some ditch and just cry yourself to death? If some group you’re a part of is being oppressed by some other group, do you just sit and complain about your lot?
Or do you get angry? Remember – the world only makes sense when you force it to, and you’re not a part of some larger group, you’re an individual. Knock it off with this group identity crap, folks. You’re not a Republican or a Democrat or a Libertarian. You’re not white or black or trans or whatever. If you willingly join into the groupthink mentality, you’re just a number. Also, the most successful identity politician of the 20th century was Hitler.
It’s not easy to find a place devoid of people these days, as the human infestation has gotten out of control and “colony collapse” disorder seems to be on the horizon.
“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.
pillared hall
Getting high in LIC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One managed to get himself invited to a mixer/party being thrown by the Queens Economic Development Corporation in LIC last week, at the Z Hotel rooftop bar. Unfortunately, circumstance didn’t allow for the setting up of a tripod and getting “truly” busy, but I did manage to squeak out a few shots while I was ten or so stories up.
Above, looking eastwards towards Queens Plaza just after sunset.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The POV normally encountered by one such as myself is firmly terrestrial and on the street, of course, so whenever an opportunity to gain some altitude is encountered it is grabbed at hungrily. Also, they had drinks, so…
Last time I was down here it was actually quite late on an early August night, and it was one of the many times that I got caught in the rain this year. That stretch of time right in the middle of the summer season between July and August, when the City was getting hit with daily thunderstorms, saw a humble narrator constantly getting caught outside in sudden downpours. Bother!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Z Hotel’s rooftop is lined with glass panels, which are anchored into the building with metal posts. I used one of those posts to steady the camera, and having remembered to turn off the image stabilizer on my lens (checklist!), and then got into the clicking and whirring action with the camera.
Y’know, this reminds me… I’ve got to get up onto the Empire State Building sometime soon, for a shot of Newtown Creek from up on high.
“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.
firmly determined
Sunnyside Yards, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned earlier in the week, one has been utilizing a severely limited photo bag for the last half of August, containing two small lenses and a novel form of camera support called an Ultrapod. The latter is basically an aluminum plate with machined screw holes of various sizes punched through it and there’s a tripod head screw mount welded onto it too. A bit of customization is called for, but due to the ubiquitous nature of the screw holes (.25 inch, 20 turn), I mounted latex furniture casters onto it – for friction. The whole thing weighs just a few ounces, even with the tripod head.
That’s Skillman Avenue up there in the shot above, and some monster has left a shopping cart nearby the bike lane. Surely a crime against humanity, and a terroristic act, this shopping cart abandonment must rate up there with the crimes of Mao and Stalin… just ask the bicycle people and they’ll tell you so. #carnage
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the fun things which I’ve been able to do with this minimal sized setup is to exploit some of the holes in the security fencing surrounding the Sunnyside Yards and get the camera lens into a steady position looking through the chain link. The smaller of the two lenses I’ve been using is a pancake lens, the Canon 24mm STM, which has a tiny little piece of glass that it peers through. That itty bitty POV is just small enough to look through these defects in the fencing, and the ultrapod gives me the stability to pull off longer exposures. Right tool for the right job, huh?
The illuminated structure in the upper right of the shot above is the Acela maintenance building, and there’s two trains inside the thing. Just to the right of that is a regular Amtrak trainset which was stopped on the tracks, and the brightly lit white building is the Standard Motor Products structure found on 39th street and Northern Blvd. The shot was gathered from the Honeywell Street truss bridge over the Sunnyside Yards.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Also gathered on the Honeywell Street truss, the shot above looks southwest across a Amtrak holding yard for what I imagine to be Northeast Corridor rolling stock, but that’s strictly an educated guess as to what they are. Sunnyside Yards is a rail coach yard – meaning that trains cross through, change crews here, stop for maintenance and cleaning – but that you can’t actually catch a train here. The irony of that never ceases to amuse one such as myself, but it is an important reminder that if you want to get technical about railroad stuff – I’m an enthusiast and know more than the average bear – but I’ve never called myself an expert on the subject.
“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 