Posts Tagged ‘Pickman’
disclosures which
Happy Monday.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, this weekend’s nocturnal walk occurred on Saturday night, which was a bit windy for my taste but I’m trying to be out and about as much as possible before proper winter sets in so there you are. Pictured above is Steinway Street, here in Astoria, where i considered getting on the subway in pursuance of getting to LIC but decided it wasn’t worth the risk of daring fate by entering the system. Instead, I scuttled along one of my usual routes, and whilst walking pondered a few things.
Amazon, Queens, life. One of the things I decided to do was put out an open request to you, lords and ladies, in the hope of attaining a point of view for the camera which I’m desirous of.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Terrestrial is how I’d describe the images I usually capture. The point of view is generally somewhere between ground level and roughly 64 inches from it (that’s how tall my tripod is). That “big project” I’ve been working on is nearly finished, but I’m still missing something, and that’s a nocturnal aerial shot of Newtown Creek. Ideally, I’d love to set up and capture the image from the Empire State Building over in the City, but they don’t exactly encourage that sort of thing on the observation deck unless you’ve got TV Network money to convince them into letting you do so. The last time I was up there, I got a bunch of daytime shots like this one, just so you understand what I need to tie a bow around this project of mine and put it to bed.
If you’re reading this in Manhattan, and live or work between 18th and 34th streets, with visual access to the East River and Newtown Creek… I’d love to try and talk you into letting me set up the gear and record your POV. I’d only need around thirty minutes, on a clear night, well after dark which is about six p.m. or later this time of year. Contact me here (link is to my email address “newtownpentacle@yahoo.com” if it sets off any security alerts, there’s nothing “unkosher” in it) if this sounds like fun. I’ll pay you back with some sort of cool thing or other.
The “full view” of the Creek from on high is what I’m looking for, but if you’re living on an upper floor in one of the new buildings in LIC or Greenpoint and can see Newtown Creek from your windows or roof, that would work as well. Pictured above, as a note, is Skillman Avenue alongside the Sunnyside Yards. Those new bike lanes are barely being used for their intended purpose, but they do make a nice safe spot to take pictures from.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the meantime, I’m scratching along in the grit and grime on the streets of Western Queens.
The shot above was captured at the intersection where Queensboro Bridge traffic from Queens Plaza emerges from under the steel of the elevated IRT Flushing line #7 tracks, and travels on one of the five vehicle bridges spanning the trackage of the Sunnyside Yards. Just to the south is Thomson Avenue, which provides another connection for LIC traffic across the Sunnyside Yards via another viaduct, and westwards towards the Court Square section of Hunters Point, and Jackson Avenue. A busy and complicated intersection, this is also where Van Dam Street begins, carrying automotive traffic south towards the Blissville section of LIC and the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge (which overflies the tracks of the Long Island Railroad) after crossing under the Long Island Expressway at Borden Avenue.
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oblique thing
Friday odds and ends, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yesterday’s snow storm really seemed to catch the City of Greater New York flat footed, huh? I actually had to contact Jimmy Van Bramer at one point in the evening to let him know that Broadway in Astoria hadn’t seen a snow plow or salt spreader all day. Within 15 minutes of me contacting the Councilmember, the plows came rolling through, which is one of the reasons that I’m glad my representative in the City Council is Mr. James Van Bramer. It’s also one of the reasons that I detest the Mayor so much, as since he’s been in office basic City services such as clearing roads during snow storms have become dependent on “knowing somebody important.”
Progressive in name only, or PINO, that’s what the Dope from Park Slope is. Every Mayor since John Lindsay has heeded the importance of clearing the roads in Queens during snow events. The Mayor tweeted that he was caught in traffic like “all of his fellow New Yorkers.” Unlike his fellow New Yorkers, the Mayor was in a caravan of NYPD driven SUV’s. His fellow New Yorkers, largely, opted to take the Subway instead. That’s what we do. Unfortunately… MTA… which I’m happy to report that former Borough President of the Bronx and failed Mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer is once again interim chair of. I know…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shots in today’s post were captured around Newtown Creek, as part of a series of night shots which have recently been presented at this – your Newtown Pentacle – in recent weeks. Above is a shot of the Maspeth Plank road site during an unusually low tide, and is one of the few where I actually set up a portable light.
This particular light is an LED floodlight which is nice and bright, but doesn’t have much “throw,” meaning that at close distance it’s particularly effective but that the light diffuses out into nothing after about 5-10 feet. This is a long exposure shot, so the light gathering quality of this sort of exposure allowed me to light up those bits of wood you see which have somehow survived in this spot since 1875 when Ulysses S. Grant was President of the United States and once supported a privately owned bridge across the Newtown Creek called the Maspeth Toll Road.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One plans, weather depending of course, on lugging the tripod and camera bag around at night again this weekend. Who knows what I’m going to see? My heartfelt desire would be to somehow get permission to enter Calvary Cemetery at night and record the darkened landscapes there, but that’s not likely to happen.
If you see some weirdo in a filthy black raincoat on the side of the road with a yellow safety vest and a tripod, that’ll be me. Don’t bother me though, I’ll be working.
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mechanically performed
What I’m doing, while you’re asleep.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Given my particularly nocturnal activities of late, it was a shock to the system when I had to arrive at an assignment on the Greenpoint/Williamsburg border yesterday at 7:30 in the morning. It’s been quite common for the last couple of weeks for me to be retiring to the bed at about 4:30-5 a.m. after returning from scuttles about the Newtown Creek with an image packed camera card. Seldom have I been out that late, rather, I’ll get back to HQ sometime just after midnight and then sit down to handle the developing process on the freshly minted pixels.
Pictured above is the Grand Street Bridge as seen from one of the two arms of the East Branch tributary of Newtown Creek. One of the things I find “neat” about these night shots, long exposures all, are details which the limitations of human night vision occluded while in the field. Those whitish gray arcing streaks in the water are reflected light coming from the scales of fishes in the water, which were invisible to the naked eye.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A bit further up the Newtown Creek, this time along the English Kills tributary, and the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge is in focus. This sort of shot is possible only because of my long sought knowledge of every possible point of view on the waterway, which I’ve spent hundreds if not thousands of hours walking around when the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself is bobbing about in the sky. That’s why I’d recommend not attempting these sorts of shots “cold,” since daylight observations have revealed to me all the spots where various urban snares and dead falls into the water can be found.
In the case of the shot above, the shoreline surrounding the bridge is decidedly unstable, with soils that are subsiding into the water and held together only by tree roots and subsurface pipes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Safe as houses, that’s how I’d describe the location this (rare for me) vertically oriented shot of the new Kosciuszcko Bridge was gathered, at the Maspeth Avenue Plank Road site. As above, so below, at the Newtown Creek.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve come to detest the LED lighting used on this and many other structures in modernity. This system of lighting creates an out of gamut series of colors, are far too bright, and give an otherwise nicely apportioned bridge the appearance of a garish Greek coffee shop back here in Astoria.
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shattered nerves
English Kills, at night.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So this is where a humble narrator found himself last evening, but as I had good company with me, one was only mildly terrified by the solemnified majesty of Newtown Creek. This is near the end of all things, where Newtown Creek’s tributary English Kills flows into a sewer which also flows into English Kills. Dichotomies notwithstanding, that’s the Montrose Avenue Railroad Bridge in the left of the shot, which carries the tracks of the Long Island Railroad’s Bushwick Branch over the waterway, and into the luminance of Waste Management’s Varick Street location. It was windy.
This is Brooklyn, roughly 3.7 miles from the East River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There were rats.
As my pal Bernie Ente used to advise “the rats at Newtown Creek are well fed and won’t bother you, they don’t care that you’re there, but they might run over your feet.” That didn’t happen, foot wise, but my companion and I did spot a few plump specimens skittering between the shadows. The biggest issue encountered, actually, was when we followed a trod upon path around the borders of the canalized waterway. The brush is still thick, and there were a few fallen trees to contend with, but we were determined to gain access to the spot where the story of Newtown Creek suddenly stops.
That spot has a designation: NC-015.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The mounds of litter and garbage that mix with and provide firmament to a tangle of self seeded vegetation and fallen trees can simply be described as “a trip hazard,” but there were more than a few spots encountered on the way to this location that could have easily ended with a broken ankle. It was quite dark, being night time, it should be mentioned. A portable light was used to illuminate the foreground in the shot above, but prior to that it was a silhouette against the water.
3.8 miles from the East River, the western facing point of view above is from above Combined Sewer Outfall #NC-015. It’s the 20th largest of the 400 such outfalls in NY Harbor, in terms of volume, releasing 344 million gallons of untreated wastewater into English Kills a year (last time I checked).
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firmly sustained
DUGABO – Down Under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge Onramp.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last night, one ventured forth with two goals; first: get a decent night shot showing as much of the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge as I could get into frame, second: try and get some equally nocturnal shots of the trains moving around on the Queens side in Blissville. While I was shooting the former, the GPA Bridge suddenly opened to allow a tug and barge through, which is how I got those light streaks in the shot above – they’re the running lights of the tug. Yay.
By the time I got to the Queens side, the railroad guys seemed to have done all the moving stuff around they needed to do for a while, but I hung around for about 45 minutes and waved the camera and tripod around at a few things.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Before you ask, this spot in DUGABO is likely not where Amazon is going to base itself. A humble narrator received several phone calls about the subject yesterday, but I’m as clueless as to that tale as everyone who is not Gubernatorial staff is. The ways of the Dark Prince of Albany are subtle, and manifest in secret. Do not try to peer too deeply at the abyss that the Dark Prince dwells within, for he may notice and fix his gaze upon you. When the Dark Prince reveals his intentions, the children will rejoice, but prior to that only lament will be theirs and ours.
Seriously, not a clue. I’m reading the papers too, that’s all I’ve got. I also have no opinion on “good or bad” yet, since I have no information at all to work with. I’ve asked around as well, and have received a universal “dunno.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On my way home, this odd little monument to workplace safety was encountered in Blissville in front of the world’s largest Fortune Cookie Bakery, a distinction which Long Island City has long enjoyed being the home of.
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