The work on the Ohio River Bridges Project Downtown Span is moving so fast it is becoming more and more difficult to shoot, edit and post the photos I’m getting now. With Ironworkers, Raising Gangs and Cable Stay Gangs, working feverishly to complete their tasks it is hectic to say the least.
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Today’s post is rather long on images yet short on words. I decided that what I wanted to show my readers was a series of several HDR construction images from a morning in November 2013. I thought sharing these HDR images from a single morning shoot would help my readers see how busy things are on the Ohio River Bridges Project.
I am always amazed at the skill and expertise that is required to do the work of Heavy Highway and Bridge Construction. Ironworkers, Carpenters and Operating Engineers must choreograph so many moves into placing the pieces of a single pier. The skill and commitment to safety that they use to get the massive components in place is a sign of their professionalism and dedication to their respective trades. Any miscalculation when handling these pieces could result in slowing or stopping construction or even worse the very real possibility of the loss of someone’s life. For that reason the attention paid to properly performing each element in the process is paramount to safely accomplishing the task at hand.
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I hope these HDR construction images help reveal the size and scope of the Ohio River Bridges Project as well as the my admiration for the skilled tradesmen and tradeswomen who perform these critical tasks. I also hope that the next time you see a construction site or meet a construction worker you will see their contribution to our way of life and the valuable part they play in building the world. Maybe you’ll even have a little more understanding of the important role that organized labor plays in providing skilled professionals that construct safe and dependable infrastructure for our world.
One final note about these images. All of the images in this post were created from three exposure bracket sets of +2, 0 and -2 EV exposures. They were merged in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and finished in Aperture 3. I use NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 because it does the best job I have found of reducing, and in most cases eliminating, ghosting when working with active subjects such as the men and women in these images. I finish the merged images in Aperture 3 because it allows me to control all the other variables such as color, contrast, sharpening etc in a non-destructive workflow.
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Yesterday morning was one of those mornings where getting up early really paid off. The temperature was 19 degrees with snow showers moving in from the west just before sunrise. The combination of the weather front and the cold temperature made for an incredible display of color as the sun rose. Continue reading “Ironworker’s Sunrise”
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Each morning after the crew meets to go over the day’s activities and assignments many of them are transported to their worksites by Lee the crew boat operator. I have learned that Lee has a good handle on what is taking place at all the pier locations on the river, he know when something significant is going to happen and often directs me to interesting activities throughout the day.
I chose this image to show Lee’s boat arriving to carry the workers to their jobs for the day. I liked the way the boat’s wake smoothly rippled across the river and the contrast of the safety vests on the workers with the deep shades of blue and green in the sky and river. Seeing the scale of the project is always difficult but whenever there are people in the scene it becomes clear what a monumental undertaking this is.
I shot this in HDR and processed it using NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and Aperture 3.
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Today’s HDR image is from the Ohio River Bridges Project, Downtown Span, being built by Walsh Construction on the Ohio River in Louisville Kentucky; they are now working on the foundation for every pier across the river. This view is from the Indiana shore in Jeffersonville looking east. There are cranes on barges across the river; each one doing some piece of work essential to the foundation prep work. Looking south there are also cranes along the horizon where work is also progressing on the rebuilding of Louisville’s Spaghetti Junction which will tie the existing freeways into the new Ohio River Downtown Span.
I used my usual three bracket set of -2, 0 and +2 EV to capture the broad dynamic range in the scene. In my processing I first merged the three images in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 where I tone-mapped it before bringing the HDR image back into Aperture and into onOne Perfect Layers where I used some adjustment layers to intensify and enhance to colors in the scene. I also applied my sharpening in onOne Perfect Effects before saving the image for the web from Aperture 3.
