Posts Tagged ‘Pittsburgh’
Smokey Pittsburgh, part 1
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Killing two birds with one stone, that’s what we were up to at the West End Overlook Park here in Pittsburgh. A tendril of the wildfire smoke that painted the East Coast in orange had settled in over the 3 Rivers area. Getting shots of that situation was one of the stones.
This one is looking down the Ohio River and over the West End Bridge at the downtown section of the City which is the titular center of all things hereabouts, or at least it is in the mental construct I’ve been building for myself about the place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These were gathered in the early evening, probably around 7 or 8 pm or so. The sun sets a bit later here than it does back on the East Coast, and I was hoping for some color to appear in the smokey sky during the sunset but no dice.
Instead, I decided to zoom in on shapes and circumstances which I found interesting. Freight trains and coal barges for the shot above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Those are the highway on-ramps leading onto the West End Bridge pictured above, offering ‘massing shapes’ which I am endlessly fascinated by. I’ve walked around down there a few times.
The Overlook at West End is found at a fairly high elevation, and there’s a small park associated with it. The spot is pretty popular, especially so with the expensive cameras and tripods crowd. Normal people who don’t feel the need to record everything they see and publish a blog about it seem to use the place for picnics and quaffing wine. I learned that by staring into the litter baskets.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Given the circumstance, which I’d describe as ‘murk,’ I kept on waving the camera around while zooming in and out on the scene.
Several of the ‘lifers’ here in Pittsburgh have told me that this is what the City used to look like everyday and all the time, due to all the steel mills that operated along the rivers. Mark Twain is reported to have described Pittsburgh as looking like “hell with the lid off” during that era.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Couldn’t resist the composition offered when this Towboat appeared, towing barges of minerals. I presume it’s either Coke or Coal on those barges, but since I’m not sure – minerals.
So, that’s the first stone I had to kill, the photos one. What was the second?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Moe the Dog, still quite the puppy, had never seen this place. Moe also hadn’t had a chance to menace West End Overlook Park’s populations of squirrels and birds either. Our Lady of the Pentacle and I have been trying to get him out as much as possible, bringing him to all sorts of places. Parks, woodlands, all that. Moe is still a bit aggressive when other dogs appear, but we’re working on that one and he’s improving. You have to teach a puppy polity, and proper manners. He’s already a good boy, but he’s becoming a better behaved one.
Back tomorrow with the day that the smoke settled in on Pittsburgh.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Will there be cake?
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, a humble narrator had purchased a ticket for a narrated tour of the Allegheny River from the Doors Open Pittsburgh outfit. The narration was grand, offered lots of ‘in the know’ trivia, and was conducted by two fellows who were passing the microphone back and forth. One of them was expert on the subject of Pittsburgh’s bridges, whereas the other was versed in city planning and the scholastic field of urbanism. Nicely done, I would venture to say.
Also as mentioned yesterday, my internal dialogue was ranting and raving about personal insecurities and generally chewing up the mental carpet. While all this was going on, I was clicking and whirring the camera as we moved through Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The sky was building up a storm, which was coagulating into the misty wildfire smoke drifting down from Canada. This was the same atmospheric interval which saw the East Coast turn orange and red, but at least on this day Pittsburgh only had a bit of haze. That would change a few days later, which you’ll see in a post later this week.
I was using one of my older lenses on this outing, an 18-300 Sigma. While shooting with it, I realized how much I missed its qualities and made a decision to bring a couple of other old favorites out of the locker and see how they react to the mirrorless camera. They all need an adapter to go from one lens mount to another, but there you are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The mirrorless lenses I have are actually pretty top notch, but you don’t want to wear the same pants every day. Actually… I do wear the exact same thing everyday. One of my odd behaviors is that when I find a garment that fits well physically and is constructed robustly, and has lots of secure pockets, I go back to wherever I got it and buy 5 more of the thing, same color and size. Superman has multiple iterations of only two suits in his closet – Clark Kent’s dark blue business suit, and the Kryptonian leotards with the cape. It’s one less thing to worry about. There’s a winter version and a summer variant of the Mitchsuit.
‘What would Superman do?’ I ask myself that all the time.
After we docked, I positively jumped into the drivers seat of the Mobile Oppression Platform and paid my parking lot fee, then headed back to HQ about 5 miles away. I’m always checking the weather for interesting conditions that might make for good shots, and discovered that the next couple of days were going to be very interesting in terms of atmospherics. More on that, 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.
Anxious on the Allegheny
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, one attended a narrated boat tour offered by the Doors Open Pittsburgh operation. I’m still learning about my new home base, after all. I took the opportunity to worry, while shooting pictures of the wonders rolling by.
Worry about what?
Everything, silly. Just like I’ve trained the brain to let anger flare and dissipate quickly, and to never allow myself to feel either happiness or joy, so too have I created a mental socket for the absolutely useless process of worrying about existential matters which I have zero control over. I tend to enjoy that form of anxiety when I can’t possibly walk into traffic or drive the car into a tree while distracted by having gone all meditative.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey, that’s the former Heinz factory!
That reminded me to worry about running out of ketchup back at HQ, which made me worry about whether or not I locked the back door on my way out. That then made me wonder if anybody was trying HQ’s back door back in Dormont, which led to a mild panic attack about whether or not I had locked the car doors back in the boat company’s parking lot. What would, could, or should? I was raised by neurotic people, and grew up in a subculture known for its histrionic responses to ordinary or predictable stimuli.
I got bit by a mosquito on the boat, so then I worried about malaria too.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mental process like this is entirely self defeating, of course, but you need to clean the bathroom periodically and so too with the poop that accumulates twixt the ears. Saying that, I’ve been in a LOT of doctor’s offices lately, which has freaked me out a bit. This sort of thing tends to muddy my psychological waters. Inspections. Brrr.
Allowing these thoughts to express themselves in an internal manner while I’m safely shooting from the deck of a boat allows me to put the shields back up before getting back onto dry land.
Just ask – How’re ya Mitch?
Everything’s great, all the time. That’s my answer, followed by ‘it’s just another day in Paradise.’ Then I’ll tell you a joke to distract you away from further inquiry. Hey, look at that, it was cloudy in Pittsburgh that day and…
“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.
Sliding along on the water
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Doors Open Pittsburgh outfit offered a narrated boat tour of the Allegheny River recently, and I bought myself a ticket. There were originally two boat tours on order for the day, but the other one got cancelled due to mechanical issues with the vessel. The cancelled one was meant to leave the dock at 8 am, with the boat that I actually got to ride on which these photos were captured from leaving dock in the afternoon. There’s three rivers in Pittsburgh, famously – the Monongahela and Allegheny flow into each other and form the Ohio.
If you like to split hairs, and let’s face it – I do – there’s five rivers. The three mentioned above, plus the Youghiogheny over in McKeesport (different government/community than Pittsburgh – sort of a NYC/Newark thing – but water doesn’t respect political boundaries) and there’s a subterranean river which acts as an aquifer that the local governmental water people mention a lot. I don’t know what to call that one, so let’s just go with ‘Styx.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For this outing, I adapted one of my older lenses onto the mirrorless canon camera I’m using these days. A Sigma 18-300 ‘all in one’ zoom, which is a ‘crop sensor’ lens designed specifically for the sort of DSLR I used to use. It’s a ‘full frame’ camera, the mirrorless one I use now, whereas my older camera was a ‘crop sensor.’ The mirrorless unit allows me to use its onboard settings to allow it to act like a crop sensor and I have a hardware adapter which handles mounting one model’s lenses on the other. Whew.
This isn’t an ideal workflow situation for me, but I’ve got piles of great lenses which I haven’t used in a while that I miss. Just last night, I pulled an old favorite out of the bag – my Sigma 18-35 f1.8, and was testing how it behaved on the mirrorless camera body.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Canon, in their infinite wisdom and greed, have decided not to allow third party lens into the mirrorless ‘RF Mount’ ecosystem at this point. This is really annoying, and whereas the lenses they’ve released for the RF mount are truly amazing, most of them cost what you’d pay for an OK used car. The lens I was using on this outing is one of my old ‘go-to’s’ from NYC when I’d have to be prepared for a variety of circumstance.
Saying that, it’s a ‘daylight’ lens, and fairly crappy for handheld use once the sun starts going down. I’m feeling the hankering for doing some night time work again, after all of this sunlit world stuff – as a note. It’s been a while.
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.
Nice parabolas, baby
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I really, really miss wearing head phones and listening to audio books on these long walks. I broke that habit, long held, during COVID and since. The streets got lonely, and since all things evil are born from loneliness, bad things were more likely to occur. Caution became a part of my tools. I need to hear the signaling slap of a sneaker upon the pavement, and can’t intentionally occlude or filter out the auditory environment anymore. Everything got weird during COVID, and it’s stayed that way, even here in Pittsburgh.
Instead, I now philosophize during these intervals. The ‘take pictures’ side of me is actively at work, and quite busy doing stuff, but there’s a whole different layer buzzing away behind the eyes and between the ears while I’m clicking the buttons on the camera. It’s where phraseology like ‘all things evil are born from loneliness’ comes from.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On this particular walk, what I was engaging in was mostly ‘background worrying.’ In this case, it was a website design impasse I found myself at, but there you go. I was mentally working out different solutions to a design problem, which I’d attempt upon getting back home again and sitting in front of The Device. I also wondered about the best way to chop onions, and considered the current gas mileage statistics of my Mobile Oppression Platform parked back in the driveway at HQ. It was quite humid out, and I was ‘sweating bullets.’
This was also one of the outings where I was intentionally traveling light – one zoom lens, two primes, one camera. No tripods, filters, nothing. Just me and the camera.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While considering the musical impact of the 1960’s animated children’s cartoon Underdog’s theme song has had on Popular Music, and then entertaining myself along the way with fanciful imaginings about starting a religious cult, realization that the ‘turnaround point’ I’d been walking towards was arrived at.
One last look back at the Eliza Trail, and then over the Monongahela River didst I scuttle.
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 