Posts Tagged ‘West End Overlook Park’
Tria flumina gelida
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A two or three day interval in early February occurred in which Pittsburgh was still fiendishly cold, but no new bands of snow had appeared. The temperatures were far too brutal for a scuttle, but the roads were somewhat navigable, so I dug the car out of my snowed in driveway and headed over to the West End Elliot Overlook Park.
As you might discern, the three rivers of Pittsburgh were completely frozen over. Well, not completely…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Maritime traffic creates channels in the ice, of course, but the Monongahela River flows south to north so its waters are quite a bit warmer than the Allegheny’s, which flow southwards. I’m told that the Allegheny regularly displays river ice and even ice flows during the winter, but that it’s much rarer for the ‘Mon’ to freeze over.
That’s the West End Bridge, over the Ohio River, in the shot above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was about 15 degrees Fahrenheit, atmosphere wise, and your humble narrator had – despite using the car – dressed in multiple layers of insulating garments to combat entropy.
I was wearing my ‘Pennsylvania coat,’ a Carhartt branded winter coat that’s all puffy. It’s not feather down within the puffs, but the look is quite similar. I hate wearing the thing, as it seriously reminds me of uncomfortable winter gear I was forced to wear as a young child.
It’s also quite clumsy. Getting my camera strap over the coat’s hood is a pain in the butt, and the puffiness of the thing drives me nuts – especially when getting in and out of the car.
What can you do? The street cassock, as I call my filthy black raincoat, ceases to function properly when the air is under twenty or so degrees. Even with multiple layers underneath, it just ain’t warm enough.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking up the Allegheny River towards the Three Sisters Bridges.
A few posts away from this one, not really sure where it is in ‘the stack,’ you’ll see me walking over one of those bridges, and showing you some closer up views of all this frozen nightmare.
As has been the case for the last few months, I’m a bit out of sync with when these posts publish from a chronological point of view. It’s currently the morning of Monday the ninth of February as I’m writing this.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was no point in using filters or anything to ‘slow’ the shot down, as the weather had already done that for me. I waved the camera around for a bit, then headed back to the car lot. Driving on Pittsburgh’s steep streets during a season of ice and snow is an adventure in itself, I’d mention.
There were a few other familiar locations which I tried to gain access to, but unfortunately I kept on encountering zero amounts of snow clearance, even at municipal parks and at privately held properties. It had been about ten days since the ‘big snow’ and despite that…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last shot of the ‘Golden Triangle’ before I departed.
The rest of my day could best be described as ‘thwarted.’ Couldn’t get near a few things I wanted, as mentioned above, whereas others offered no safe walking path (still have to worry about the ankle), or the conditions of the road leading to my destination were a non starter.
Back tomorrow with something different.
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Kicking dirt at West End Elliot Overlook
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After an interminable interval, Our Lady of the Pentacle had finally boarded a flight, from the UK, and was on her way back home via the Pittsburgh International AirPort.
Me? I had time to kill while anxiously waiting to pick her up from that facility, and had positioned myself in a photogenic spot to pass the time until that joyous moment when a text arrived saying ‘I’ve landed.’
I picked the West End Elliot Overlook Park to go kick dirt, partially because it’s about a five minute drive to a highway onramp which would then send me hurtling in the direction of Our Lady in the automobile.
About a 25 minute drive at this time of day, more or less, from this spot to the airport. Perfect.
The tripod was set up, my lens cleaned of dust, and I got busy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This little outing of mine occurred just before sunset, and the Overlook is a great place to shoot ‘urban landscape’ for both sunrise and sunset. A city park, there’s a parking lot with a port-a-potty installed in it, and there’s always some people there. Some picnic people were observed, a few pot smokers, others sipping hooch from a bottle hidden in a paper bag. Lots of dog walkers, too. Nice quiet and cool spot, this.
There was maritime traffic down on the ‘Mon,’ with a Towboat towing an enormous raft of what looked like twenty empty barges under the Fort Pitt Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Ronald D. Koontz Towboat. Marinetraffic.com offers this page about the vessel, which hides what you’d like to see behind a paywall that renders the formerly great functionality of their site moot. Cory Doctorow has coined the term ‘enshittification’ to describe what’s going on with the internet these days, and I’m in agreement.
The future has turned out to really suck, hasn’t it?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself’s emanations faded, I was keeping myself busy. Panoramas, long exposures, the whole quiver.
If you’d like to see a full sized version of the panorama image above, click here for its Flickr page and zoom in. Go to town. Carnival!
The two bridges in the shot are the Fort Duquesne Bridge over the Allegheny River on the left, and the Fort Pitt Bridge over the Monongahela River on the right.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I kept checking my phone for the anxiously awaited text that Our Lady had landed at the airport. In the meantime, I kept shooting.
It’s been a long time since I did any ‘night stuff.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s West End Bridge over the Ohio River, which is frequently mentioned here. I’ll often walk over that span on one of my scuttles, after taking the T light Rail to Pittsburgh’s North Side from HQ.
Back tomorrow with more.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
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As below, so above
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After capturing shots of the frozen rivers, here in Pittsburgh, at the shoreline level nearby the Mr. Rogers monument on the Allegheny River, your humble narrator headed back to his Mobile Oppression Platform, and set out to West End Overlook Park to take in the whole scene. Wow.
The Monongahela River comes up from the south via West Virginia, so its waters are warmer than those of the Allegheny, which starts its journey to the north in the State of New York, near Kinzua.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Ohio River pictured above, which mixes the first two waterways into a third. I’m told that the Corps of Engineers does ice breaking with a series of second party partners here, but I keep on hoping to see a black hull Coast Guard boat busting through. I seem to recall that it was eight degrees Fahrenheit that afternoon.
Your humble narrator was freezing and it was time to head back to the MOP, a Toyota. The thing was activated, and the heat turned up high. I settled into my station and began navigating. I eventually had to head over to a different section of Pittsburgh for yet another PT session, but was glad of being able to capture this phenomena.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you’d imagine, in a place renowned for its overlook park, the town of West End/Elliot is huddled up against a steep hill which plateaus at the overlook. This was the view of that particular milieu, as I was driving back down to the valley level, where a series of roadway interchanges awaited me. It was yet another ‘PT’ day, after all.
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.
So, the sun rose again
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent endeavor found a humble narrator waking up at 5 in the morning and then driving over to the West End Overlook Park, in Pittsburgh’s Eliot section, for sunrise. A new lens has been acquired, one which finally replaces my old Sigma 18-300mm Superzoom that was a ‘go-to’ on my older camera. The Sigma was a ‘crop sensor’ lens, so adapting it onto my current ‘full frame’ setup never was a good idea as I was throwing away a third of the image by doing so.
The new glass I’ve acquired is from Canon, and it’s a 24-240mm superzoom. Nothing better for testing a lens than mounting the camera onto the tripod and doing a sunrise session, I seldom say.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is very much a ‘daylight’ and ‘outdoors’ lens, with a fairly narrow maximum aperture, but I was impressed by the results it produced. It’s heavy, but with this new device in my bag, I can leave several other lenses at home and go out with ‘bare minimum kit.’
Pictured is a CSX freight train rounding a bend along the Monongahela River on Pittsburgh’s south side.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shots in todays post were all captured in about an hour or so, and they were selected not to necessarily display the growing illumination of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself, rather they just kind of fit in with what I was trying to do here – discerning the failings and strengths of the glass before my return window closed on it.
If a lens sucks, I send it back.
That’s Allegheny General Hospital in the shot above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking downward at West End Bridge’s approach ramps just as the morning light reached them.
Just like my old Sigma lens, this new one operates best with a narrow aperture – I like f8 for this kind of shooting. It’s a variable aperture zoom, f4 at the wide side and f6.3 at the telephoto side.
At some point I decided to pop the camera off of the tripod, activate the lens’ image stabilizer technology, and then shoot handheld for a while. It behaved like a champ.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Long telephoto lenses are pretty expensive when you get to the high end, especially the ones you’ll see sports and bird photographers brandishing. I didn’t need anything like that, as I don’t regularly shoot those sorts of things. Instead, being able to quickly dial between wide angle and long telephoto was what I’ve been missing in recent months.
This one looks down the Monongahela River, and that’s the Fort Pitt Bridge at bottom right.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wide open at 24mm, you can see the range that the zoom lens offers when comparing it with the 240mm shot which preceded it. This is a bit wider than human vision, but was more or less the scene I was looking at.
Back tomorrow with something different, 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.
Moist
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has been informed by several members of those age cohorts which follow my own, that the word which forms the title of this post makes them vaguely uncomfortable. My response to this usually involves mentioning the packaging og supermarket cake mixes like Betty Crocker’s with their promises for the finished product, and then questioning them what about why this word is so disturbing to them. It’s vague, their discomfort is, I’m told.
Pittsburgh and its environs received a near record amount of rainfall in April, which caused the rivers to swell and burst their banks. It was quite a hullabaloo. Thereby, the entire Pittsburgh region was overly moist.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s Point State Park, with its iconic fountain, positively buried beneath an admixture of the Monongahela and Allegheny River’s respective waters. As is my practice, I wanted to get no where close to such conditions, and a visit to the community of West End and its Overlook Park – which are several hundred feet higher in altitude than the water – was enacted.
My time here was somewhat limited, I’d mention, as Our Lady of the Pentacle would be requiring a ride home from some social ‘do’ she was attending. One got busy with the camera in the allotted interval.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A low laying bank of mist, and a precipitant one at that, blew in from the direction of the Ohio River. The precipitation caught and diffused the emanations of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself, as it was dipping behind Mount Washington. There were a few other photographers at work up here, I’d mention – a couple of drone guys, and about three or four other stills shooters.
A kid standing next to me was obviously new to the ‘scene’ and had brought zero preparation with him for inclement atmospheric conditions. I had my umbrella with me, and a ubiquitously present and quite absorbent kitchen towel which I always carry, in case I have to wipe the camera down after a blast of rain comes through. You never know.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A rainbow set up behind Mount Washington and I made sure to get a shot of that. The flooding in Pittsburgh has since reversed, and the waterfront trails and the flooded park in the first and second shots have reopened for public inspection and use. Such is the nature of things, I guess.
For those of you who have accused a humble narrator of ‘drinking the kool aid’ on the subject of climate change, over the years, I’d ask – is the weather and your expectations of its seasonal variants different these days from when you were a kid? Does the winter seem warmer, the spring wetter?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking westwards, over the Ohio River, towards the bands of rain which the storm was blowing in, is what’s depicted in this shot. The ridge lining the start of the Ohio River Valley had already plunged the area into shadow, but the shot was a bit underexposed – purposely – to allow the rain some visibility.
Just as this shot was being executed, my phone chimed with a message from Our Lady that she was ready for me to come and fetch her. Five minutes, I replied.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking back at Downtown Pittsburgh with its flooded shorelines, just as the various office buildings began to light up for the night. The gear was then packed up, salutations offered to the young fellow standing next to me who owned an overly moist camera, and soon I was behind the wheel of the Mobile Oppression Platform and heading towards Our Lady.
Back tomorrow with something different 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 