Sidewalk Sunflower
Sidewalk Sunflower
It’s about the only thing blooming around here!
Perhaps they are learning from my neighbor children with their sidewalk chalk. Usually the utility workers with their spray cans are not so artistic. This is apparently a gas line access, since the gas company uses school bus yellow to mark their utility lines. Instead of the usual “X” or “+” depending on your perspective, this person added an extra crossbar. When slight depression left for the access plate was filled in with asphalt, the gritty, grainy black looked like sunflower seeds crowding the center of a sunflower, making the yellow crossbars look like petals.
Orange
Orange
You just never know what you’ll find when the snow melts and the sun shines. This color was so intense and the glass so interesting I actually saw it from far down the street on the edge of a gravel parking lot. It’s very thick and oddly shaped and I really can’t figure out what the original object was unless it was a clear glass object or sculpture. In any case, it’s in interesting composition on it own, and a sight for sore eyes this time of the year.
Meanwhile Last Year: Illuminated Blossoms
Illuminated blossoms.
The pear trees were blooming on Main Street on this day last year! Not a sign of any pear trees or magnolia, and even the daffodils are hesitating.
Brick Street
Brick Street
On a sunny day like today this pale yellow brick street is nearly blinding.
Old and New
Allegheny county Jail
What’s this medieval-looking fortress in the midst of modern buildings?
It’s the Allegheny County Jail in downtown Pittsburgh. What else does one do when sitting in traffic on a perfectly clear sunny day?
It’s an interesting contrast, especially seen from behind when it actually is a wall that makes it look like a fortress.
Patterns
Patterns
Bright late winter sun turns up interesting things, the graffiti on a rusted abandoned railroad bridge, and the last tired vestiges of wormwood.
Left Outside
Left Outside
Someone left a number of quart-size canning jars outside their door for most of the winter. They don’t have the lids, only rings, so rain and snow fell inside, melted, froze and did all the things water does. I’m surprised only one jar is shattered, but it looks like four friends who are a little worse for the wear.
Settling Into Evening
Settling Into Evening
Sunset fading orange casts a warm glow on snow-covered rooftops and streets; shadows tinge violet. Houses, mill and more houses march across the valley in courses, filling from one hill to the next.
Pittsburgh at New Year’s
Pittsburgh at New Year’s, 2008
It’s snowing and I’m not going to First Night, but I thought I’d post two of the photos I took of Pittsburgh, viewed from Mt. Washington, taken on New Year’s Eve a few years ago.
Pittsburgh at Night
I don’t know why it’s always captivated me, but Pittsburgh at night, the modest buildings lit just right, bridges decorated with lights, all reflected on one river or another, has always been one of my favorite scenes. I took this series of photos and created a panorama on Monday night about 9:15, so many of the office buildings weren’t as well lit as they would have been earlier in the evening, but I never pass up a chance to stop on Mt. Washington to photograph the city.
This view is of “First Side”, along the Monongahela River right before it reaches the point; off to the right a little past center is the Smithfield Street Bridge, then in the darkness over the river is one bridge after another—Panhandle, Liberty, 10th Street, Birmingham, Hot Metal, then the bend where J&L Steel used to fire the night sky with an orange glow.
But even before that bend in the river, this little cluster of buildings coming to a point where a great river is born is all of downtown Pittsburgh.
Modern
modern.
It’s an interesting contrast in the fifties-era look of the street corner contrasted with the young guy talking on a cell phone, all on a winter morning so frosty that a winter morning haze developed.
I love that tangle of wires, too. It’s on Pittsburgh’s North Side.
Bridges
Entering the arch.
I got stuck in traffic on a sunny day, taken on a detour of about three miles over the course of an hour, so I took pictures.
Pittsburgh’s 16th Street Bridge is on the National Register of Historic Places and is an interesting structure, unlike other single through-arch bridges, this one is a double arch, and the arches are lower, with stone pillars holding metal sculptures at each end. It’s painted yellow like so many of our bridges.
I really wanted to get this shot without the car in front of me—impossible because of the slowly moving line of traffic—but when I looked at the photos I found I liked the car where it was.
View of Main Street
View of West Carnegie
Walking around affords all sorts of interesting views you don’t see from the car. Walking a little out of the way affords views you haven’t seen before. Putting this together and planning for the right time of day pays of in an interesting shot. The leaves have fallen off the trees, an overcast day opened up just before sunset, and I finally got one of the shots of an area of Carnegie I’ve been planning for a while.
At this time of day, at this time of year, the trees are bare and otherwise large pools of shadow are open, and the sun, angled down after the autumnal equinox instead of shining from overhead, flows down the east-west leading streets and alights the details on the houses.
And here is this view in sepia, similar to my last view of West Main Street.
West Main Street from above, in sepia.
West Main Street
West Main Street
It’s only at a certain time late in the day that the sun lights these six blocks of West Main Street all the way to the west end of town. Bonus that the sky was reflecting on the railroad tracks. I tried my best to avoid the mail utility pole and “stop here at red” sign for what they blocked, but I love the busy-ness of wires and poles further down.
And just to show that the town still looks much like the small town it’s always been, here’s a sepia version of the same thing.
West Main Street Carnegie looking vintage.
A Retro Autumn Afternoon, 2010
Enjoy the day.
The Decade retro and vintage clothing and wares store on Pittsburgh’s South Side opens its door to the warm autumn afternoon and places two retro-colored retro metal porch chairs outside. Have a seat! Enjoy the busy street and what turned out to be the last warm, sunny day for a while.
Pittsburgh at Night, 2011
Pittsburgh at Night
I don’t know why it’s always captivated me, but Pittsburgh at night, the modest buildings lit just right, bridges decorated with lights, all reflected on one river or another, has always been one of my favorite scenes. I took this series of photos and created a panorama on Monday night about 9:15, so many of the office buildings weren’t as well lit as they would have been earlier in the evening, but I never pass up a chance to stop on Mt. Washington to photograph the city.
This view is of “First Side”, along the Monongahela River right before it reaches the point; off to the right a little past center is the Smithfield Street Bridge, then in the darkness over the river is one bridge after another—Panhandle, Liberty, 10th Street, Birmingham, Hot Metal, then the bend where J&L Steel used to fire the night sky with an orange glow.
But even before that bend in the river, this little cluster of buildings coming to a point where a great river is born is all of downtown Pittsburgh. See other photos I’ve taken of Pittsburgh
All Roads Lead to Carnegie, 2011
Main Street Banners
Our everyday banners in Carnegie line up neatly along Main Street and add color with a few awnings. In a few weeks these ornamental pear trees will turn to bronze.
I designed these banners for the Carnegie Community Development Corporation and Carnegie Borough to replace the set of turquoise banners we’d had for at least six years.
The phrase came from a stop I made at a convenience store out in the middle of nowhere while actually only about 15 miles from Carnegie—rural southwestern Pennsylvania is like that, wooded hills and open fields and numbered state roads. Remembering another visit out that way I knew one of the roads I was on led right back into Carnegie from out there, windy and hilly, but no turns.
I asked the clerk, “Which one of these roads leads to Carnegie?”
She paused and considered for just a few seconds. “All roads lead to Carnegie,” she said, as if it was a fact that everyone knew.
It’s true too. Carnegie, even though only six miles outside Pittsburgh, was once a hub for all the small towns to the south and west, and looking at a map, especially before the interstate, all those state and county roads do lead to Carnegie.
This is also one of the images in my photo exhibit, Carnegie Photographed.
Pittsburgh Autumn Bridge, 2010
Pittsburgh Autumn Bridge
Well, I was stuck in traffic on a lovely autumn day, so I took a photo through the windshield. But it’s typical Pittsburgh, a suspension bridge, a steep hill covered with trees and peppered with houses, a few churches in various denominations mixed in, incredible clouds and a lovely blue above, plus you know there’s a river in there somewhere. Pittsburgh is a lovely city but on a day like yesterday it’s breathtaking.
I wish my travels had allowed me to safely take a few other photos, but you can’t just stop in the middle of traffic, let the camera focus and click a few times without some difficulty in traffic flow. I passed no fewer than five major universities and an international teaching hospital, probably a dozen or more national historic sites and the headweaters of the Ohio River, to name a few things, plus dozens of distinct neighborhoods.
I just wonder who got up there and painted the dinosaurs on the rigging.
It’s the 10th Street Bridge that connects downtown Pittsburgh with the South Side.
Straight Down
Straight Down
One of Pittsburgh’s typical steep brick streets. It’s the sort of thing most of us take for granted, but some out-of-towners are hesitant. Really, it’s survivable. We do it every day.
Morning Fog
Foggy Morning
Another foggy morning, this time on Mt. Washington in Pittsburgh, the sun shining right down Grandview Avenue.
Monongahela Fog
Monongahela Fog
A spectacularly foggy morning, the type that only autumn provides. This is a bend in the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh, the bit of a bridge you see is the Birmingham Bridge from the South Side Flats to the Boulevard of the Allies in the Lower Hill/Uptown/South Oakland. The steam rises from a concrete plant on Second Avenue, on the river’s edge, where the J&L Plant once stood; in the distance you see the first of the buildings in Oakland leading to Carlow University, Chatham University, the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. In this fog, this could have been taken decades ago, representing the smog from the mills. The mills are gone, the air and the rivers are relatively clean, but the colleges, the neighborhoods, the essence of Pittsburgh is still there in the rolling fog of an October morning.
Main Street at Twilight, 2011
Main Street at Twilight
The first block of East Main Street in Carnegie, PA at dusk.
I have no idea how my little hand-held digital metered the colors like this, but I heartily approve! Honestly, this is not touched up in any way, even though the sky looks as if I either added from another photo, I adjusted the color in that area or I just painted in another sky. The whole thing looks like a movie set.
The time of day was twilight, after the sun dropped below the horizon but still reflected on the sky and the thin overcast of clouds. I know I pointed my focus spot on the darkest area in the scene, way down at the other end of Main Street, the building that is actually on a hill in the next community, and that would have influenced the internal metering especially since the scene looks very bright although it’s only the street lights that provide illumination. I can assure you they are not that bright.
And likely the yellow lights also pushed the complementary blue of the sky a little brighter than it actually was. However it happened, I approve.
This was taken with my little Lumix point and shoot where I have very little control, but the other settings that would have influenced this outcome are two I’ve always set on these little cameras. First, I turn the stabilizer mode, which will help to eliminate blurriness in low-light conditions, to “off” because in these small cameras it simply changes the ASA setting to a higher number. This results in a photo that looks great in your view screen, but when you open it up on your computer it’s completely grainy. I use a tripod, or, as in this case, I find something to set the camera on or press it against and set the shutter for a 2-second timed delay so that everything is as still as it’s going to get when the shutter finally opens.
Second, I set the EV, or exposure value, setting two or three steps below the middle. Most cameras shoot light so that as much light as possible gets into the lens, but you also lose detail in the highlights and I find it doesn’t meter well for images with a lot of contrast, which is usually what attracts me.
So, I guess that’s how this one turned out like this.
This photo is available as a print in my gallery on Fine Art America. I can also prepare a print in a variety of styles and sizes.
Alley Taken Over by Morning Glories, 2011
Morning Glories
I walked to my destinations today, and always find the most interesting photo subjects when on foot; I’m lucky I got to where I was going.
This alley backs buildings that are mostly older homes made into ill-kept rentals; landscaping is not maintained, nor are fences, garages, back porches, etc. I often find the detritus of everyday life interesting strewn around in the tall grass of an uncut back yard, piles of stuff can amount to modern sculpture and a leaning twisted gate is always an interesting subject from any angle.
But this September the good old-fashioned purple morning glories that spring up seemingly from nowhere decided to decorate the place, and up and down the alley they had twined on fences, trees, tall weeds, parked vehicles, bicycles, everything that had stood still for at least three weeks was festooned in dense garlands of heart-shaped green leaves and twirling, reaching stems sending out individual questing purple trumpets until finally, today, they bloomed in earnest.
Roberto Clemente Bridge, 2011
The Roberto Clemente Bridge, Pittsburgh
I took a little drive through Pittsburgh this evening at dusk, and while I didn’t take this photo this evening, what I saw reminded me of it, the gold of one of Pittsburgh’s bridges, the deep blue of the evening sky reflected on the gentle ripples of the river, the lights dancing. I thought it would be nice to share.
This is the Roberto Clemente Bridge, the former Sixth Street Bridge crossing the Allegheny River from Downtown Pittsburgh to the North Side right next to PNC Park. It was lit on this night because there was a game at the field.
It’s the first of the “three sisters bridges”, the next being the Andy Warhol Bridge and then the Rachel Carson Bridge—sisters in spirit, perhaps. You can see the stone piers and a little of the bridge decks and suspension wires beyond this one. I’m kind of proud that these three bridges are named for these three people.
Fire Escape
Fire Escape
It’s not often I can get the sun shining this directly on a fire escape up the back of a building. Stop the car in the middle of the alley, get out and take a picture.
