Posts Tagged ‘photowalk’
Archives #037
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hands down, that’s my favorite ever angry pigeon photo above. It’s one of a series of shots that I’d use for profile pics on Xoom meetings during COVID, and I’d switch them around to signal my support or ire at whatever the active speaker was talking about. The ‘non verbal communication’ bird pictured above was encountered in Queens’ Sunnyside Gardens, as a note.
2015’s November 26th post, dubbed ‘louder drone,’ was definitely one for the birds.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At least once a week back in NYC, over a period of more than a decade, some sort of Newtown Creek ‘thing’ would require my attendance. I would arrive early and then walk home, usually. Two birds, one stone, yeah?
In 2021, ‘scoundrel out’ brought readers back to Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Since moving to Pittsburgh, rail ‘stuff’ has been catching my eye. It’s actually a challenge photographing something which is huge and moving quickly. Now… that’s the sort of statement which I usually get lacerated for in the comments, so have at it.
These archive posts are reaching into Newtown Pentacle’s backups, and are pulling posts that went public on this date, in their respective years, going back to 2009. This practice will continue until I’m back on both feet full time, and new photos and stories can be gathered. For anyone who hasn’t heard the news, I broke my left ankle at the end of September.
In 2024, a few images of Pittsburgh’s rail traffic was on offer in ‘Thanksgiving Choo-Choos.’
“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.
Archives #036
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These archive posts are reaching into Newtown Pentacle’s backups, and are pulling posts that went public on this date, in their respective years, going back to 2009. This practice will continue until I’m back on both feet full time, and new photos and stories can be gathered. For anyone who hasn’t heard the news, I broke my left ankle at the end of September.
One of my notions, when I lived in Queens, was that the abundant grave yards along the Brooklyn Queens border which form the so called ‘Cemetery Belt’ are fantastic places to stretch your legs and get some exercise. Few or no cars, lots of trees and birds… just stick to the roads and paths. If you see a path nearby a fence… definitely walk that way, never know what you might find and it very well might involve extinct North American elephants.
In 2010 on November 25th, ‘Things you learn from being a ghoul’ published, describing a walk through St. Michael’s Cemetery in Astoria that proves the point I always make about paying attention to little things.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As the story goes, I was on my way to some midtown bar for a friend’s birthday when a powerful thunderstorm roared through the City. I had my trusty old Canon G10 with me, which at the time sported a magnetic tripod mount. I clanked the thing down onto a fire hydrant as an ad hoc tripod, as the sky displayed a meteorological phenomenon called Mammatus Clouds. The light was unreal for about a minute. I got lucky.
2015’s ‘or depend’ was actually a Thanksgiving week archive post, so double boomerang on this one. Incidentally, the photo above is my most pirated shot – ever.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Famously, if I’m ‘out and about,’ I’ve got the camera deployed and ready.
Have to take a subway somewhere? Why not get a shot of it? All of those meetings I used to have to attend, in all of the bizarre places they were held, often brought me to visually interesting areas. Sometimes, I’d go ride the trains for ‘shits and giggles’ when I was physically compromised or the weather sucked.
2019’s ‘wholly allied’ saw me riding the 7 train corridor at night.
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.
Archives #035
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Directly after this photo was taken in 2010, then NYS AG Andrew Cuomo transmogrified into a crab monster and chewed the heads off of eleven journalists, a television sound person, and three videographers. Luckily, your humble narrator was using a telephoto lens, and was thereby far enough away to avoid this carnage. A limo arrived, and every step Cuomo took toward it saw him reeling in the extra limbs and eye stalks, and a seemingly human creature in a tattered suit entered the vehicle, which drove away. Building superintendents appeared, who hosed down the charnel gutter. The viscera flowed into and out of the open sewers, and the Newtown Creek ran red with the third estate that day.
You don’t mess with Andy Cuomo.
In 2010, all the fancy people came to Brooklyn and gathered along the Newtown Creek to commemorate the end of legal hostilities between Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and the transnational energy giant regarding the Greenpoint Oil Spill.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Jesus! There’s something about mass production meeting the sacred, and it leads to an all too obvious and somewhat French influenced commentary about… it’s wank though. Nothing matters anymore. Still, commodifying the belief system of others for personal profit is a pretty delicate thing.
Whereas, at the time of this archive post’s publication – there was not – but now – there is – a fully articulated and posable Jesus action figure out there. Someone’s going to hell over this one, right? I mean… $55 for a doll?
In 2013’s ‘not inefficient,’ your humble narrator became transfixed by a series of plastic religious statues on sale in one of Astoria’s multitudinous 99 cent stores.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That bright orange business on the right hand side of the shot above is the Queensboro Bridge, with Manhattan at top of the shot and Queens Plaza in the fore. I got this one when a friend allowed me access to the roof deck of the condo building he was occupying for a spell.
These archive posts are reaching into Newtown Pentacle’s backups, and are pulling posts that went public on this date, in their respective years, going back to 2009. This practice will continue until I’m back on both feet full time, and new photos and stories can be gathered. For anyone who hasn’t heard the news, I broke my left ankle at the end of September.
In 2018, ‘momentous talk’ showed off a few photos from high over Long Island City, at night! Why don’t any of the new people have curtains?
Back next week.
“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.
Archives #034
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself lived in Astoria for about nineteen years and I think that I walked over the Pulaski Bridge between LIC and Greenpoint at least once a week for about fifteen of those years. I christened the surrounding area as DUPBO – Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp. It seems many of the mouth breathers from Maspeth take umbrage at this, but I really don’t care.
Over the years, the Maspeth crowd always disappointed me, regarding Newtown Creek. The general sentiment there is to pave it over.
2018’s ‘professional duty’ wandered around ‘DUPBO’ in Long Island City.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The part of Brooklyn I grew up in is practically not in the same Borough as Williamsburg/Greenpoint. My Dad went to Automotive for high school, I’d mention, and back when I was a teenager – if the subject of either neighborhood came up – he’d say ‘Stay outah Nort Brooklyn.’
Long story short, I was a Good Humor Man for most of a summer at the end of high school, and my ice cream selling partner and I ended up getting into a high speed (30mph, as these trucks are not quick) ice cream truck chase with Mister Softee on the Belt Parkway (starting all the way out by Kings Plaza), which ended in Williamsburg when our truck’s engine conked out. Softee escaped the wrath for poaching our territory.
Needing a ride back home from Williamsburg, I called the old man, waking him up. I told him the tale and when I mentioned where we were, he slammed the phone receiver down. Back then, you could hear the phone’s bell chime ring just before the signal went out. A half hour later, the old man shows up in the 1963 Buick Skylark, and me and my partner get in the car. I turn to thank the old man, and then get popped on the side of my head as he said ‘I toldja to stay outah Nort Brooklyn.’
Other than an Italian bakery on Grand street, which made particularly lovely cookies, he avoided the area like the plague. He would have really been pissed off if he was alive when I was doing the whole Newtown Creek thing.
2019’s ‘thing depicted’ focused in on the Verrazano Bridge. This was about the halfway point in the ice cream truck chase.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m not sure what my ‘long walk’ possibilities are going to be, for a while. I might have to buy a bike or something. All of these trails I’ve been walking here in Pittsburgh are bikes too, so… I guess it would be nice to have some range as well – distance here in Pittsburgh is very, very different than it is in New York with its feature rich environment.
These archive posts are reaching into Newtown Pentacle’s backups, and are pulling posts that went public on this date, in their respective years, going back to 2009. This practice will continue until I’m back on both feet full time, and new photos and stories can be gathered. For anyone who hasn’t heard the news, I broke my left ankle at the end of September.
In 2023, ‘low to high’ was published, which discusses a section of a somewhat long walk in Pittsburgh. I got to see a train!
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.
Archives #033
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One cannot describe how much I wish to puncture my sick room boredom and get out with the camera again. The foot is recovering, although it’s my ankle that got broken. The ghastly consequence of the ankle injury caused a significant amount of damage to the foot’s skinvelope, which felt like a burn for much of the last fifteen hundred and thirteen hours. The constancy of pain has fallen off as the injury and post surgical situation has healed, and my old mutant healing powers have resurfaced. When I was young, I healed like Wolverine. Not so much anymore.
I may get my balls busted mercilessly for it in the comments section occasionally, but it’s been a practice of mine to try and be radically honest about the various health issues I’ve experienced over the years while writing this periodical. 2012’s ‘lurk unseen’ was published while I was experiencing a short term back problem, for instance.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the prime reasons why I got so involved with the Governmental and regulatory nitty gritty around Newtown Creek was to create access for the camera. I managed to get into places that nobody else – including the TV networks – could get close to. Over the years, I had to endure literal days of OSHA classes and training into get to some of these places, but you gotta do what you gotta do if you want the shot. Saying that, once you’re ‘CERT’d’ by one industrial entity, that’s good enough to satisfy insurance requirements for others. These shots were taken by a humble narrator wearing a vest, hard hat, and very uncomfortable steel toe boots. Nobody gets hurt, that’s the rule. Except for the boots, they hurt.
2015’s ‘brought up’ details a visit to the still under construction Kosciuszko Bridge project and shows various stages of the work. I’d mention that both ‘then’ Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, and former Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, were also on this walk but not ‘officially’ so ‘no photos of them’ was requested as it would have become a ‘thing’ with the Governor’s office otherwise.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s actually kind of amazing, all the stuff I’ve gotten to do, and especially so between about 2009 and 2020. Covid closed a bunch of doors, ones which never reopened. Separately from this sudden need to exploit the Pentacle archives, your humble narrator has been sorting through literally hundreds thousands of photos in pursuance of finally building a portfolio site based around these ‘prime’ years of mine. One thing that’s popped up during this process is that I’ve got a lot of dead friends, many of whom I used to do all this crazy stuff with.
Used to be, when Captain John Doswell called you up and asked if you’d be interested in riding on a boat to Albany, in January, with Bernie Ente onboard and Bill Chambers acting as skipper…
These archive posts are reaching into Newtown Pentacle’s backups, and are pulling posts that went public on this date, in their respective years, going back to 2009. This practice will continue until I’m back on both feet full time, and new photos and stories can be gathered. For anyone who hasn’t heard the news, I broke my left ankle at the end of September.
I capture a huge number of photos – under normal circumstances – while accomplishing my daily round, many of which are ‘odd balls’ that don’t necessarily fit the narrative of a post. Every now and again, I’ll pull a few of these shots together and run them together as an ‘odds and ends’ post – as in 2020’s ‘stagger back.’
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 