The Newtown Pentacle

Friday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

A ‘photo safari’ event at Pittsburgh’s Carrie Furnace had drawn me in, and several posts this week have shown you – lords and ladies – what I witnessed at this nationally recognized historic site.

As described, I had worked opposite to the main body of my fellow photography enthusiasts, which allowed for not having to deal with a crowd. A full circuit of the ruins of this steel mill soon found me at the edge of the property and gazing at a locomotive engine (pictured above and below) which once belonged to U.S. Steel.

It sits nearby a mechanism which the industrial giant utilized to transport coal from the rail cars to the mill’s power plant and furnaces.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There’s a nearby bridge, abandoned, which I suspect once connected this rail track to the south side of the Monongahela River. The burning thermonuclear eye of god itself had risen to its noon day heights, emanating waves of heat and strong light which inspired the 3rd and 4th century A.D. Romans to begin worshipping a deity called ‘Sol Invictus’ or the ‘Unconquered Sun.’ Monotheistic, Sol Invictus allowed for an easy transition to Christianity for the Roman government by the time Constantine wore the purple. The feast of the unconquered sun, for instance, was celebrated on December 25th.

For some reason, Carrie Furnace makes me think a lot about Rome.

There was no reason to use a tripod in such circumstance, so I switched the camera’s operational settings back to handheld mode.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There’s that ‘establishing shot’ mentioned yesterday, wherein nearly the entire surviving complex at Carrie Furnace can be observed.

I was walking on a berm found at the edge of the property which once carried the rail tracks which led away from the position of that locomotive engine in the first two shots of today’s post.

The grounds of the place are a sort of poisoned meadow. I’m sure that digging down just a few feet into the loam would bring up soils laced with heavy metals and coal/arsenic pollutants.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Yet another freight train, this time Norfolk Southern’s #4491, raced past in the direction of a bridge which connects to the community of Homestead, found on the southern bank of the Monongahela River. Like the CSX units observed earlier in the day, I’m fairly sure this one was returning from a delivery to the still active Edgar Thompson Steel Mill, about a mile or so up the river.

This shot is extremely cropped in, as I wasn’t armed with a super zoom on the camera – in terms of lenses.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I began a second circle of the place, seeking out spots which I hadn’t captured shots of yet, and zooming in on details. A humble narrator was growing fatigued by this point, which is a disturbing sensation for me that has been increasing in frequency as age’s degradations set in, diminishing the physical plant. Like a leaf, you… as the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner opines.

I take some satisfaction out of the fact that I’m in quite a bit better condition than my Dad was at my age. Saying that, the old man worked with his hands his entire life and had a list of injuries that would cover both sides of a piece of paper were they to be listed out. I’ve spent most of my working life behind a desk, in contrast.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Just last week, one had to endure a dental procedure wherein the Periodontist commented that I had a horizontal crack on one of my front teeth. I confessed knowledge of the flaw, and told her the story of a bar fight on Manhattan’s west side wherein I caught a kick to the mouth and described the style of boot which had caused the injury.

That’s really what the difference between me and the old man is, though. He got hurt a lot while trying to feed a family, whereas I have gotten hurt a lot in pursuance of fun.

One more post from Carrie is coming your way on Monday, from inside a space that I got to visit for the first time on this outing.

Back next week.

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle

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Thursday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Carrie Furnace in Pittsburgh’s Swissvale section, part of which is pictured above, is where I spent a pleasant Sunday morning not too long ago. A defunct and ruined steel mill, this is a ‘national historic place.’

Pictured is the main chamber you encounter upon entering the site, which I did as part of a ‘photo safari’ offered by the Rivers of Steel non profit operation that looks after this, and other, steel industry related historic sites in the region.

When operational, this section would have looked like a literal ‘hell on earth,’ with molten metal and flames shooting about. Temperatures within this structure would have required protective garb and limited occupational exposure to its Tartarean levels of heat.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The group of photographers whom I was a member of all hit this section first, vying for position and impatiently waiting for others to ‘get out of frame.’ My plan involved going to the other sections of this ruination first, and then swinging back around this way. It worked out pretty well for me. Scroll down to the prior posts from this week for more.

As a note: I don’t like having to talk to people when I’m shooting. Usually, the headphones squash that before it gets started, but I wasn’t listening to any of my beloved audiobooks or podcasts on this outing.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There’s a bit of a labyrinth present at Carrie, and I was following both instinct and experience on this particular morning. To see prior visits – click here. The former visits informed my steps, and helped decided where I would set up the camera/tripod combo for captures.

The morning/transitioning to afternoon light was a challenge. I’m going back for another session here at the end of May, a visit which will occur in the late afternoon/early evening. The evening light should be a bit ‘kinder,’ but you never know. Last time I was here for the ‘sunset’ it rained for 2.5 of the 4 hours.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Moving through the complex, there were lots and lots of available compositions to be had. The problem was isolating myself down to individual subjects, as the byzantine complexity of the place created a ‘busy’ visual landscape.

This is always a problem that needs solving when photographing in industrial or post industrial spaces. How do you visually organize things?

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This isn’t the same cylindrical structure as the one in the prior shot, as a note, there’s several of these gizmos.

After moving through the central area of the place, I looped back around to where I got started, with the intention of getting some ‘overview’ master shots. In comic book artist or film director terms, you’d call this getting an ‘establishing shot,’ which lets the viewer know where everything is before the action starts.

You’ll see that establishing shot tomorrow.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

While repositioning myself, another CSX freight train roared by.

CSX #7225 specifically. My presumption is that the train was returning from delivering its cargo to the nearby Edgar Thompson works, which is an active and very operational steel mill that’s about a mile or so up river.

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.

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.

“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.

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

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.