Posts Tagged ‘wildfire smoke’
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.
The Newtown Pentacle 