Posts Tagged ‘West End Bridge’
Obsessive & compulsive
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As previously stated, one was involved with an afternoon constitutional walk on a fairly chilly afternoon recently, and my pathway carried me to the West End Bridge here in Pittsburgh. It’s the first bridge to cross the Ohio River, and found just a few hundred yards away from where the admixture of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers form the waterway’s source.
There’s a pedestrian and bike path on either side of the bridge. I was walking on the eastern side of the thing, which faces downtown Pittsburgh and several other points of interest.
This was a short walk, but I was also desirous of and committed to a ‘photowalk,’ wherein the wandering photographer makes it a point of looking up, down, all around along a meandering path.
Serendipity is what one craves, ultimately. Right place, right time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a towing company, which I know nothing about, based on the southern shore of the river. They seem to haul a lot of mineral barges, but I spotted a Towboat with a barge whose design is unfamiliar to me. It was riding high in the water, suggesting an empty hold, but constructed in a rather stout manner with lots of metal fastenings. It also had a ‘lid’ on it, but didn’t appear to be a fuel barge. Gas, maybe? I don’t know, but if you’ve got an idea – leave a comment and share the wealth.
I was using a zoom lens on this walk – my super reliable 28-105mm. The thing has gotten a bit banged up over the last few years, I’d mention, but it’s also tens of thousands of exposures in at this point. The choice of lens was made for convenience’s sake. Wish I had a broader zoom range, but…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is one of the spots I ‘slow walk’ whenever I’m scuttling down this particular route. Love the abandoned blue automotive care building with its patches of moss on the roof, but what really draws me in are the railroad tracks. These belong to CSX, and are fairly well used. Fencing starts just as you get to where you’d want to shoot from, but there’s ‘Bernie Holes’ cut into the chain link which allows for pretty nice views of the tracks.
More on that tomorrow, and also on what I mean when I say ‘Bernie Hole,’ at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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Scuttle on, my wayward son
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Climatologically speaking, it was in in the high 30’s with a stiff wind on this particular afternoon, but exercise day is exercise day and a humble narrator tries to stick to a schedule. One scuttled up the hill from HQ, and soon found himself at the Potomac ‘Red Line’ Station of Pittsburgh’s light rail system – The T – and ready to board a city bound train set and subsequently set out on a short walk.
As stated previously, a short walk for me is one of about 4-5 miles. This one was also a ‘photowalk,’ which means that whereas I intended to wave the camera around, no specific shot was being sought. Catch as catch can, for this sort of thing.
The T service carried me to its terminal stop on the north shore of Pittsburgh, dubbed Allegheny Station, which is where the line runs up and out of the ground and onto an elevated track, which is found nearby Acrisure Stadium wherein the Pittsburgh Steelers play sportsball.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Curiosity leads me about on this sort of endeavor. What’s over there, or there, or… you just kind of follow your nose, and try to see something off the beaten track. I was intrigued by the masonry shadow of a long gone building. Its shape suggests that a house used to kiss up against the larger commercial structure, which is itself hollowed out and largely windowless, as it is seemingly undergoing a stalled renovation.
A recently announced development project, whose footprint is nearby, promises a new effort at making use of a part of Pittsburgh’s waterfront to create a tourist, hospitality, nightlife, and shopping Mecca that would take advantage of sportsball tourism. The centerpiece of this project is a giant Ferris wheel.
That didn’t work out too good on Staten Island, I’d offer, but sportball stadiums actually cost NYC money, whereas the ones in Pittsburgh offer a surplus in economic activity and tourism (hotels, bars, restaurants, even the museums see higher revenue during weekend sports events here).
It’ll be interesting to see what happens, maybe ride that Ferris Wheel, and ultimately – I don’t really care. My gentrifiers are back in NYC. I guess that I’m one in Pittsburgh – howzaboutdat?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My nose following found me walking towards the West End Bridge, to enact a now familiar plan of heading back towards the distant T station which would be the end of this short walk. Luckily, for once, I had picked the right time of day – as you’ll see in posts all week long.
Apparently, and I’m sure this is an absolute coincidence and has nothing to do with the development plans, the West End Bridge is about to start redesigning its approaches and interfaces with the neighborhoods that it connects to… one of which happens to be where that Ferris Wheel dealie is supposed to be. There’s an local outfit called Riverlife which seems to be driving the train on this one.
Lots to see coming up this week – here at Newtown Pentacle – towboats and railroads, oh my. Back tomorrow.
“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.
A gray day
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was exercise day again, so the now familiar ritual of walking to and riding the T streetcar, from HQ to the metropolitan center of Pittsburgh, was enacted. I’ve been using my headphones again on these walks, after a quite long interval of not doing so, and one was listening to an audiobook.
This time around one was listening to a ‘various hands’ reading of the text of Nietzsche’s ‘Beyond Good and Evil,’ with different narrators reading the various chapters, a file I had long ago downloaded from the LibriVox outfit. It’s a series of awful readings actually, of a book written by an awful man and the audiobook uses a not so great translation as its source. The audiobook has a series of what sounds like 19 year old American college students do the readings. Seriously, if you want to produce something like this, find somebody who sounds like Werner Herzog or Brother Theodore to do the narration. It’s Nietzsche, after all.
Thus spake Waxathustra, while watching as a village fool, walking on a tightrope of aspirant desire, took that first step in order to delight the sheep below.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I switched over to a different audiobook, and proceeded to scuttle towards Pittsburgh’s West End Bridge, spanning the Ohio River. The T had dropped me on the North Shore of the Allegheny River, nearby the sports ball stadium utilized by the Pittsburgh Steelers to thrill the community, and at the streetcar service’s terminal stop not too far from the aforementioned West End Bridge.
The new audiobook I had keyed in was Nellie Bly’s ‘Ten Days in a Mad-House.’ The text triggered a vast set of reminiscences for me, about Roosevelt Island and the Queensboro Bridge. This narration was read by a woman who sounded quite young, and quite apropo for the voice of Nellie, who was the inspiration for Lois Lane.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After crossing the Ohio River, one encountered the outfall canal of its tributary ‘Chartiers Creek,’ a waterway which was mentioned in a post about a recent visit to the community of Carnegie for a short walk, not so long ago. This day’s endeavor, however, was one of my ‘long walks’ and there were a few things which I planned on getting a look at along the way, which included the outfall pictured above.
Ten Days in a Mad-House, if you’re not familiar, revolves around a 19th century Reporter Nellie Bly getting herself committed to New York’s Welfare Island (today’s Roosevelt Island) asylum, as part of an undercover assignment for the New York World newspaper. If you want to check out the free audiobook – here you go.
Later in her career, Bly would ‘go around the world in 72 days,’ write a novel, and then married a 73 year old millionaire when she was 31. After her husband’s death in 1904, Bly became an industrialist running his steel can and container manufacturing business. Nellie Bly was a pen name, she was actually named Elizabeth Cochran.
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.
Hi-oh, Ohio
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Scuttling along on the West End Bridge in Pittsburgh with a wide angle 16mm lens on the camera, over the mouth of the Ohio River (which is formed by the confluent mating of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers below), and a humble narrator had finally at the preordained spot where a lens swap would occur and the other new lens – the RF 50mm f1.8 – was attached to the camera.
I was really running the new glass through its paces on this scuttle, using the camera’s different autofocus mechanisms (zone, spot, tracking etc.) and photographic formulae. The aperture was also being dialed up and down between shots, as I was searching for what would end up being the ‘sweet spot’ settings for the two new lenses. As a note, I seldom do this sort of ‘round the world’ kind of shooting. Normally, I use a tried and true formula based on atmospheric and lighting conditions.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The 50mm’s sweet spot seems to be either f2.8 & f4. The optical formula underlying the so called ‘Nifty Fifty’ has always been somewhat persnickety in my experience. Sometimes it hits perfectly, other times it’s inexplicably ‘off.’ That’s why you take multiple exposures, though.
A storm was brewing, and later on in the evening a drizzling rain started up. At this particular moment, however, it was merely overcast.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Norfolk Southern was moving a train set along one of their elevated tracks, with the thing heading eastwards. I had seen it coming down the river when I was still a hundred yards from this spot, and decided to use the opportunity to activate the camera’s ‘follow focus’ autofocus settings, which were also set for ‘vehicle’ tracking. The lens performed well, locking in on the desired subject amongst a polyglot of other distractions.
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.
Scuttling wide
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Testing out a couple of newly acquired lenses, a humble narrator debarked Pittsburgh’s ‘T’ light rail service at its terminal stop, which is dubbed as ‘Allegheny.’ Allegheny is across the street from the sports ball stadium on Pittsburgh’s North Side, where the Pittsburgh Steelers do their thing. I had walked and described this path in detail last week – here, and here. A pretty decent scuttle this is, I would mention, one which is about 5 miles long and involves negotiating several flights of stairs, while offering interesting scenery that’s quite ’photogenic.’
At the start of the endeavor, I had outfitted the camera with an extremely wide angle prime lens of 16mm which offers something like 140 degrees of view. There’s a decent amount of distortion inherent to this kind of ‘fish eye’ dealie, although a true fisheye would be more like 8mm. I was trying to ‘get to know’ the thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the things I learned on this walk is that the focal point for the lens needs to be in the dead bang center of the frame, or you’re going to get a significant amount of optical fisheye distortion. Look at the way that the truck in lower right leans into the shot above, for instance. This is after the photoshop lens profile is applied, which somewhat ameliorates these distortions, I would add. There’s a way around this sort of thing, with a different kind of wide angle lens that’s called a ‘tilt shift,’ but there you are.
A humble narrator was heading towards the West End Bridge pictured at the center of the shot, which is described in one of the posts linked to above. It was overcast and cool out, but I was sweating a bit as I was really leaning into the walk and moving somewhat rapidly. According to my phone’s health app, this part of the walk was 12,162 steps long, which translates down to about six miles. The trick to it being ‘good cardio,’ according to my team of Doctors, revolves around getting the pulse rate up to a certain level, and then steadily maintaining that pace over an extended interval of time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I had two new lenses which I was trying out on this walk, the 16mm and a 50mm. I kept on beating down the urge to swap the 50mm onto the camera until I reached the southern shore of the Ohio River which is spanned by the West End Bridge. Along the way, I narrowed and then opened the aperture, shot from the waist and from above my head. I overexposed and under exposed, pointing the thing ‘up, down, all around.’ As mentioned – getting to know it, trying to find what the thing couldn’t do, and how and why it would fail.
More tomorrow, at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
“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.
