Posts Tagged ‘Pittsburgh’
Carrie Furnace, part 2
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described yesterday, a humble narrator bought his way onto a ‘photo safari’ event at the Carrie Furnaces in Pittsburgh’s Swissvale section. A National Historic Place, Carrie was once part of U.S. Steel’s Homestead works – which – during its time – was the largest steel plant on the planet. A guide from the Rivers of Steel outfit, which cares for and manages the place, had given us a brief overview and walk through description of where we could and couldn’t go. After that, she headed back to the front gate, and since free reign was now in effect – I got busy.
These are all tripod shots, and represent a delicate balancing act as far as exposure goes. Within the structures, it was either morning daylight shining through, or deeply shadowed. As in the case of the shot above, it was both simultaneously. Luckily, I know a camera trick or two to handle this sort of thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve mentioned ‘photo stacking’ before, although in the context of focus. This technique involves moving the lens’ point of focus, on a tripod mounted camera, around the frame during multiple exposures. For example – You do one close up, one middle depth, and one focused on infinity. In photoshop the three are combined, with the software building a single uniformly sharp image out of the three. I’ve used this technique a lot over the years, and it’s particularly useful when doing landscape shots.
You can also photo stack for exposure. This gets a little more complicated, and the hard part of it is remembering what you were doing when you shot the subject in the field, as you’re slogging through the image folder while back at HQ and in front of the computer. The shot above, for instance, used one exposure and point of focus for the interior foreground, and a second set of settings for the brightly lit exterior. A lot of trial and error has gone into understanding what to feed the software, as far as the raw image, in order to get a predictable result.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one uses a more traditional application of the technique, with one focus point trained on the interior brick and metal combined with a second shot that was focused without. Yeah, I know… as the kids in Quadrophenia would have remarked: wizard.
While we were doing the walk through, I was already hatching my plan for how to shoot this place. I had decided to spend a half hour or so inside the plant itself, and then walk widdershins (anticlockwise) around it. This decision was based on where I thought the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself would be hanging in the sky, during my visit to Carrie Furnace.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Also described yesterday, I wish that I could offer you a granular and well understood picture of what you’re looking at, but I know very little about metals production and about steel in particular. Truth be told, the phrase that kept on popping up in my brain while shooting these images was ‘Triborough Bridge.’ Now… that’s something I know about.
A theory (originally offered by Robert Caro) which I’m fond of is that Robert Moses was the reason that the USA ended up being the 800 pound Gorilla during WW2. When Moses placed the steel orders for Triborough in 1932, the furnaces of Pittsburgh were reactivated, after their slumber in the early days of Great Depression. The steel supply chain was also activated, creating an economic and industrial wave which rippled out of Pittsburgh to the coal and iron mines of the interior via the railroads. A forest was cut down just to make the lumber needed for Triborough’s construction scaffolding. Some 31 million man hours, playing out in 134 cities across 20 states, went into Triborough, as Caro stated.
When Pearl Harbor occurred nine years later, it didn’t take too long for the United States to conjure up a brand new Pacific Fleet to the Japanese, for their consideration, because ‘hell with the lid off’ (as Mark Twain once described Pittsburgh) was all fired up and ready to rock. If Moses hadn’t brokered his power to build that massive bridge complex with its 17.5 miles of roadways in NY Harbor…
The steel in the Empire State Building was created at Carrie, as a note. That’s bit of trivia is something I learned off of a beer mug in a Pittsburgh bar and it seems to be true.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sorry, NYC slips back in sometimes… this is Pittsburgh… not…
I began my slow circling of the Carrie Furnace, with the camera mounted up on the Sirui Carbon Fiber tripod that I’ve been using for the last five years or so. It’s just light enough to be ‘carryable,’ and therefore I almost always have it with me. I seem to recall that I had the camera set up for ISO 100, F8, and exposure time was whatever it needed to be. I didn’t use the wired shutter release switch as I normally do, and just had the camera set to wait out a small delay after I hit the shutter button to ameliorate ‘shake.’ I opted for the Canon 24-105mm lens this time around. I had others with me, but the wide to telephoto range of this piece of glass was perfect for the site.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The yellow chains seen in the middle of the shot indicated ‘no go’ areas as designated by the Rivers of Steel people. They explained that these areas were unstable and could be dangerous, which is also why we were asked to wear hard hats. Situations like this are also where the virtue of using a zoom lens for this sort of location comes into play.
Back in Queens, I’d regularly get contacted by photographers who were interested in Newtown Creek but were a little worried about their safety or where they could go. I’d always gladly take them out for a walk, and pass on the things I’d learned over the years. Invariably, I’d find them walking onto slippery shoreline rocks, or doing some other dangerous stunt to get a close up of something. After they were done and safely back on the pavement, I’d say ‘isn’t that a zoom lens’?
Back tomorrow with more from Carrie Furnace.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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“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.
Pittsburgh 3 ways
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wamma lamma ding dong, I almost cannot wait to show all of you the posts scheduled for next week here at Newtown Pentacle, which detail one of the cooler experiences I’ve had so far, here in Pittsburgh. For this Friday post, however, it’s just three shots of the pretty city of Pittsburgh with its always dynamic atmosphere boiling in the sky.
Weather is very different here than it was back in NYC, which I’ve found myself starting to refer to as ‘back home’ or ‘the old neighborhood.’ I suppose that was inevitable.
It’s a volatile atmosphere that you’ll encounter here in Pittsburgh, due to the river valleys and the foot hills of the Appalachia Range’s interactions with the sky vault. A couple of weeks ago it was 89 degrees at 4 in the afternoon and then 54 degrees at midnight. You can leave the house in a driving rainstorm and by the time you get where you’re going, it’s blue sky and sunny – all in the space of 20 minutes. The sky’s gyrations aren’t muted by the presence of an ocean, here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We’ve been pretty lucky so far, weather wise. We moved out here during the high winter. Pittsburgh’s winters have a ferocious reputation, but as it turns out the 22/23 winter season here was the warmest and least snowy winter that this City has experienced in decades. That’s called a soft landing, lords and ladies. I fear we won’t get that sort of lucky again, given that this is an El Niño year.
Those dynamic skies, though. Lately, I find myself exposing the shots with the sky in mind. I’m of the belief that Pittsburgh’s iconic ‘Empire State Building’ or ‘Golden Gate Bridge’ is the sky itself.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next week is going to be fairly hardcore, with six image posts returning for an interval. I got to go somewhere that I found visually exciting, and under circumstance where I could ‘do my thing’ without any real interruption for multiple hours. Set up the tripod, compose shots, the whole shebang. Thereby…
…back next week, with what I saw when I got to visit Carrie Furnace.
“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.
All wet on the Ohio River, part 2
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few more shots from a boat tour of the Ohio River here in Pittsburgh, offered by the Doors Open Pittsburgh organization, which were captured during a driving rain storm. As is always the case with such things, pretty much the minute that the boat we were on returned to dock, the clouds parted and it became sunny and lovely, but while we were onboard it was absolutely pissing down. Difficult photography weather, as the rain was accompanied by a precipitating mist.
That’s Brunot’s Island pictured above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A strait of water separates Brunot from its neighbor – Neville Island – which is a lot larger and is ‘mixed use’ with heavy industrial activity at one end with a residential community found on the other. I drove over to Neville Island a while back to take a lookie loo at what’s there. It’s on my list for ‘interesting places’ which I intend on learning more about and waving the camera at in the future.
To my eye, that’s a former concrete plant, pictured above, nestled in amongst the trees.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned, the rain began to let up a bit as we were returning to the dock, but I dig the shot above for some reason. It’s got a moodiness to it that reminds me of adolescence. Wish I could tell you we did something exciting after debarking the boat, but friends from NYC were meant to be visiting us during the following week, so Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself did some food shopping and then went back to HQ to straighten up the joint and get it ‘guest ready.’
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.
All wet on the Ohio River, part 1
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself attended another rainy day boat tour recently, one which proceeded down the Ohio River. It was teeming, unfortunately, but that’s the gamble you make when you buy a boat ticket in advance of the date. This one was offered by the Doors Open Pittsburgh outfit. It proceeded from a dock on the Monongahela River and headed over to the Ohio River, where a circumnavigation of one of the largish islands found in Pittsburgh was accomplished.
We’ve experienced a weird couple of weeks in Pittsburgh. Our next door neighbors suffered a pretty involved house fire, one which saw a massive response by local firefighters who saved the building but not before some pretty major damage occurred. This really freaked us out, I should mention. Horrible stuff. Nobody got hurt, thankfully, but seeing somebody’s entire life go up in smoke was a pretty awful and unsettling experience. In a separate storyline, we got an up close look at the Opioid Epidemic in this region which was… it was wild.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the boat we were riding on, there were a small and soggy band of camera wielders which I soon found myself a part of. We were all compressed into a spot which offered some shelter from the rain. It was difficult to keep the lens clean, but there you go.
From what I could discern of the narration, over the sound of the rain itself hitting the river, the facility pictured above is some sort of wastewater plant.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the more intriguing places here on the Ohio River is called Brunot’s Island. It’s private property, and owned by an electrical transmission outfit, and thereby unavailable to public inspection. There used to be an automobile racetrack there, I’m told. I’m also informed that bird watchers and nature enthusiasts will sometimes kayak to and landfall/trespass on its privately owned shorelines during the summer months.
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.
Objectively, a fountainhead
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The mental construct I’ve been building, in pursuance of understanding the Pittsburgh region, uses the fountain pictured above as the titular center of the metro region. This is ‘sorta kinda’ true, given the Point State Park’s proximity to the corporate and governmental sections of ‘Downtown.’ The Steelers stadium is across the river, which is where the actual beating heart of the City of Pittsburgh is found. Most of the transit in the region has its first or last stop somewhere within a half mile of this fountain, so…
A friend who’s a multi decade resident of Pittsburgh once described the macro layout of the region to me as ‘spokes and wheels,’ an analogy which I’ve found fairly accurate. It seems that the part of Pittsburgh surrounding this fountain is the ‘master cylinder’ for those other geographically distributed wheels.
I recently read an interesting history of this area which describes the spot where that fountain is found as once having been the site of an exposition hall which hosted what would now be called a ‘World’s Fair.’ The rest of the site’s history was what you’d expect hereabouts – rail yards and steel mills, essentially.
Developing an geospatial awareness is still something I’m still working on. I’ll often stand in a spot, pointing my fingers in various directions while saying “East, North, etc.” and then when I check my phone for verification of my ideations, discover that I’m hopelessly and wildly wrong. I’ll get there, I suppose.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The fountain was my ‘turn around point’ on this particular walk, wherein the journey back to HQ starts. Downtown Pittsburgh is weird. It reminds one of Batman’s Gotham City, but that could just be me transposing, as they actually did shoot parts of the Christian Bale Dark Knight movies here. Most of the buildings in the larger metro region spread out horizontally, on enormous plots and sport campuses that are fenced in by parking lots. Downtown is a bit more of a skyscraper situation, with lots of corporate and government buildings crowded into the triangular river delta, forcing the density up vertically rather than spreading it horizontally.
Pittsburgh doesn’t use a grid system for its streets, mainly due to terrain and the industrial past. Having grown up in a grid based city, this means I’m often confused by its long arcing roads and dead ending ‘No Outlet’ cul-de-sacs. To be fair, though, it doesn’t take much to confuse me these days. I’m old, and scared of teenagers. I think a wolf might have been following me, too, or at least a large Pomeranian.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The scene above amused the heck out of me. One thing I’ve been trying to do, here in a more genteel section of these United States, is to curb my Brooklyn potty mouth. My natural speech pattern is South Eastern Brooklyn based, meaning I use ‘effin’ as an adjectival modifier intuitively. If I was writing assembly instructions for a piece of furniture in my native idiom it would go something like “get that a-hole into place, then use that d-bag wrench over there and ‘effin turn the c-sucker until it stops. Don’t be a D and force it, ya s-bagging s-head dumb-a.”
I’ve consciously moved over to using ‘heck’ and ‘darn’ as a crutch, and have been washing my mouth out with soap when needed.
“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 