Early February in Section One of the Ohio River Bridges Project I captured the images in this post. On this particular morning I was scouting the area around Adams Street into Main Street at Slugger Field looking for photos that would use the early morning light. The slight filter of the high thin clouds softened the light slightly and illuminated the scenes wonderfully. I hope you enjoy them.
Click on any image to open a slideshow in a separate window.
The people in the first two images are of the laborers who place and finish the wet concrete to build anything from a foundation to a roadway. After the Carpenters build the forms the Laborers take over; they place the concrete and finish it. The object hanging in the air is a concrete bucket is carrying a load of wet concrete to the Laborers for placement. Once that is done and the concrete has set the forms are removed and moved to the next place they are needed.
In the second image the concrete bucket is nearly in place. Standing on the form is a Laborer with a radio directing the Crane Operator and the load into place. After this bucket is unloaded the Laborers will vibrate the freshly poured concrete to consolidate it and eliminate any air pockets, etc. While they do that the bucket is carried back to the concrete delivery truck to be filled again. Once that is done and the concrete has set the forms are removed and moved to the next place they are needed.
I processed both these images in Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop CS5. After that I opened them in onOne Perfect Enhance and applied the Magic Landscape preset. I also added a subtle vignette while in onOne Perfect Enhance. These are not HDR images but they still have the vibrant edge I like in my work without the attendant headaches of merging, anti-ghosting and tone mapping. I think it will give me a more friendly workflow that simply builds on my experience with Aperture 1,2 &3, PS CS5 and ACR.
I really dug the way these steel H beams led my eye into this scene. As soon as I saw it with that intense hot sun glancing off them; I knew I was going to shoot everything and include the sun. Every time I look at this image my eye races into the frame from the simple linear foreground until it suddenly slams into a barrier of vertical forms. Suddenly the background streams into the sky as if reaching for the sun and the stardust that they, and we, are all made from.
The BIG BANG BABY!… the beginning and the end all rolled into one… just like us the universe is dying even as it is born… just the natural order of things… the BIG CIRCLE Theory… can’t stop it… wouldn’t want to…
The landscape version of that same scene seems to reverse the effect as if the H beams are hurtling toward the viewer. By simply getting a little lower and cutting off the mast on the pile driver crane I was able to elicit a different sense of movement within the frame. The triangle formed the highway bridge and the beams on the ground on the right side of the image shoots the eye into the frame where it ricochets off the background and races straight back to the viewer. Once again I find the intense reflection of the sun on the steel charges the scene with energy and references the origin of life on our planet.
I also processed the two images above from single exposures using Adobe Camera Raw, PS CS5 and onOne Perfect Enhance
Alog Adams Street
You are doing some amazing photographic work for this project. Poetic, photographic realism at it’s best—I hope the city, workforce and construction management realize the artistic/historical value of your work.
THank you for the kind words Willa.
Marvelous photographs! I especially love the “long shots!” The perspective is powerful!
Thanks Ellen I too like the way the steel beams sweep the eye into the scene.