Posts Tagged ‘West End Overlook Park’
A better morning
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a disappointing sunset photo session at West End Overlook Park here in Pittsburgh, described in last Friday’s post, a humble but quite frustrated narrator set an early alarm the next morning and set out to see if sunrise would provide me with better results from both effort and location.
I ran into that deer again, incidentally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, there were banks of clouds rolling around the heavenly vault, and there was also a bit of morning fog. Both atmospheric conditions allowed for the light to carry and push a bunch of color about, so I got busy.
Learning how Pittsburgh’s light behaves has been an adventure, I tell you. This is very much a ‘morning’ sort of place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Down on the Ohio River, a towing company was moving barges about. There was also quite a bit of automotive traffic rolling about, as you’d imagine on a week day morning. I arrived at this location before the Spotted Lantern Flies woke up. Pittsburgh is infested with these things, and Moe the Dog eats so many of them every day that it’s become part of the little goblin’s diet.
The other day, Moe stood up on his hind legs with his hands on a deck rail/bannister, while attempting to spy out where his next lanternfly snack was hiding. I called out to him, and when he looked over his shoulder at me it was a freakishly horrific sight which reminded me of something from a Tolkien story. Two legs bad, four legs good.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking towards the Allegheny River’s North Shore in this shot.
A humble narrator has always been an ‘owl’ rather than a ‘lark,’ as far as wakefulness goes, and have always been conspicuously awake late into the night. At the moment, I’m trying to unspool the habits of a lifetime lived in a City that never slept but enjoyed the odd nap, and am attempting to get into step with a City which wakes up early and watches the sun come up over coffees.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has repeatedly found himself setting an alarm for 4:30 or 5 in the morning, showering while the water is boiling up for the morning ‘cuppa,’ and jetting out of HQ to get some exercise or wave the camera around at something. The quality of light seems to be better at dawn than at dusk, and mid day is nothing but harsh shadows and blown out highlights. I plan on figuring out night shooting here during the cold months.
This shot overlooks the so called ‘North side.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The deer didn’t seem at all worried about me being there while it was eating breakfast. After the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself had risen in the sky, any desire I had to shoot from West End Overlook dissipated as I was staring directly into the radioactive fireball.
I packed up my gear and hopped back into the Mobile Oppression Platform, and then drove over to the North Side water front which is pictured above. More on that tomorrow…
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From West End Overlook
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has mentioned, and offered views from, Pittsburgh’s West End Overlook Park in the past. This spot is about a 15 minute long and quite easily executed drive from HQ in the nearby Borough of Dormont, and the overlook provides commanding views of the city center. You’re actually executing about a half mile of change in altitude while driving through three and change miles horizontally – it’s a thousand feet down to the level of the river from Dormont, and then around a thousand feet up through the neighborhoods of West End and Elliot. Proximity means I find myself heading up there periodically to wave the camera about.
This time around, it was that interval of the day during which the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself disappears behind Ohio.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the juncture, right in front of the fountain at Point State Park, of the three rivers – where the Monongahela and Allegheny combine to form the Ohio River. I’m told Lewis and Clark left for their famous adventure on the Jeffersonian mission to examine the western territories gained via the Louisiana Purchase from somewhere nearby. I’m also led to believe that the stand of tall buildings on the right hand side of the ‘point’ used to be a rather busy rail yard.
Moe the Dog was along for this excursion, and so was Our Lady of the Pentacle, whom he was hauling about at her end of his leash. This spot is absolutely infested with Spotted Lantern Flies, I would mention, and as Moe considers the pests to be flying popcorn… let’s just say Moe did his part to combat the infestation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you’ve probably discerned, I was playing about with various methods of capturing the scenery. I shot a few panoramas as well, such as this one. A humble narrator really likes this spot for several reasons.
There’s ample parking, and a Port A Potty is found in the parking lot at the entrance to the place. There’s lot of strollers, pot smokers, and dog walkers who frequent the spot and on more than one occasion, I’ve seen and chatted with other members of the tripod and lens crowd as well as Drone pilots, and even a broadcast television videographer up here. It reminds me of the scene long enjoyed along the East River along Long Island City’s piers during Manhattanhenge.
If I’m coming here though, it’s always at the bookends of the day – very early or nearly late. I haven’t done the ‘dead of night’ here. Yet.
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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.
Smokey Pittsburgh, part 2
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator woke out of his nest around 4:30 am, hastily cooked up a pot of coffee, and was out on the road by 5:15 after inhaling three cups of the stuff. The weather forecast called for a bank of heavy fog to set up overnight, which would be coupled with a pall of wildfire smoke so thick that it triggered a bunch of governmental warnings about air quality being transmitted to Pittsburgh’s citizenry.
One returned to West End Overlook Park, to see what this sort of thing might look like, as the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself rose in the eastern sky.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When I got there, you could hear the city but couldn’t see it. Heck, I could barely see the cameraman from local CBS affiliate KDKA and he was about thirty feet away from me. It was actually a fairly difficult drive, with visibility of under a hundred feet. Luckily this POV is only about twenty minutes from HQ by car.
I hung around for about thirty minutes, hoping that the occlusion would thin out a bit, but if anything it got thicker. A change of plan was instituted and I packed myself back into the car and headed for a different spot to do my thing from.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As is my habit, while stuck at a traffic light, the camera was thrust up through the car’s moon roof. At this interval, I had traveled down about 800-900 feet in altitude, and was more or less on flat land and quite near the Monongahela River. The fog – as it turns out – was acting like a low flying cloud, and the West End Overlook Park was right in the middle of the mass. Down here, it was mainly smoke, with heavy fog.
Pittsburgh smelled kind of like everybody in it was BBQing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After getting down to a river frontage of the Monongahela, and having parked the Mobile Oppression Platform in an appropriate fashion, a bit of scuttling ensued.
Pittsburgh’s downtown, where the large buildings are, was fairly invisible. As mentioned above, you could hear the city but couldn’t see it. That was eerie and weird, and worth waking up early for.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The camera was waved about, that’s the T light rail heading out of Pittsburgh on the Panhandle Bridge. The Smithfield Street Bridge is just visible behind it.
One had drank his coffee before leaving the house, but no Breakfast had been endured, and right about here is when I started wishing that Pittsburgh had NYC style bodegas on every corner. An ‘egg sandwich’ doesn’t mean the same thing here as it does in ‘the old neighborhood.’ In fact, when I’ve asked for an egg sandwich in the NY manner here: two scrambles, ham and swiss, on a roll – I get puzzled looks back from the Yinzers with a “you want what now?”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finishing up the morning, with a last couple of shots pointed in the direction of Downtown and the Liberty Bridge. The fog, at least, had begun to disperse. One scuttled back to the vehicle and then back to HQ.
Back next week.
“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.
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
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.
2 trains and a boat
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, the car needed gas. Nearby the gas station I’m currently fueling up at are a set of freight tracks which are used by the Wheeling & Lake Erie RR, pictured above. I’ve driven up to the pump and discovered this train passing by, driven away from it and witnessed the train arriving…
This time around, after topping off the tank, I parked the car in an industrial driveway and sat around in it for about a half hour, eventually getting lucky enough to catch a shot of the thing as it steamed along.
A Class 2 regional railroad, Wheeling & Lake Erie is a modern operation started in 1990 that uses the name of Jay Gould’s original 1880-1949 company. W&LE ended up becoming part of Norfolk Southern, until the larger company started selling off parts of its portfolio of assets and in 1990 the modern company was born. They serve areas of Northern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, and now I have a photo of one of their trains. Apparently, their Engine 6982 was built in 1971, and rebuilt in 1995. It’s apparently an EMD SD40-2, but not being a true railfan – just a guy who likes to take pictures of trains – I had to look that one up.
If you disagree with make, model, etc. you’re probably right, so please share it with the rest of the class in the comments section.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was at a fairly cool location in Pittsburgh which I’ve visited in the past – West End Overlook Park – when I noticed a CSX train hauling cargo down the Monongahela River toward its intersection with the Ohio River. That intersection is more or less in the shot above, I guess. Those orange and black shapes at bottom left are barges of coal.
Twice I got lucky with trains. Twice in one afternoon. This has been driving me nuts, as a note, being surrounded by cool railroad stuff and not having the ability to get some shots of it because I’m driving or my timing is off. There’s always something. Saying that, I’ve begun to develop an idea of when some of these trains seem most likely to come through, and where I should be lurking about to get my shots of them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I promised a boat in the title, and there you are. There’s a towing operation based right about where the West End Bridge, pictured above, is found. As of yet, I haven’t figured out how to get down to their base and say hello. Saying that, I know where they are, so that’s some sort of progress. Things here are beginning to become “familiar.”
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 