The Ohio River Bridges Project resumed work on Monday January 5, 2015. Even though the weather was frigid I went out shoot the Ohio River Bridges Project first workday of 2015. I was only out there for a couple of hours unlike the construction workers who spent the entire day in the cold.
Tag: Welding
Frank Lobody Repairing A Drill Shaft at the Ohio River Bridges Project
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Today’s images are of Frank Lobody, a mechanic for Walsh Construction, who travels from job site to job site throughout the US to handle heavy equipment repairs. Frank is a member of the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 150 in Porter, Indiana. When I met Frank he was repairing a drill shaft for the BG-40 Drilling Machine being used in Louisville to drill into the bedrock for the bridge piers on the Ohio River Bridges Project.
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The bedrock on the Ohio River Bridges Project is very hard and sometimes the drill shaft breaks under the load of trying to drill over 30 feet into it. Once the bridge pier casings are placed through the soil down to the bedrock it is necessary to drill a socket 30 feet into rock to anchor the piers. On the Kentucky side of the river that means drilling almost 150 feet from the surface to the bottom of the socket.
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All three of these HDR images were processed from a three frame bracket set of +2, 0 and -2 EV exposures using NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and Aperture 3 software.
Work On Southbound I-65 Bridges and Roadway Progresses
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The southbound I-65 work is progressing well as the Walsh Construction crews build the new bridges and roadway that will replace the old I-65 infrastructure. In this photo you can see the steel bridge decking being installed in the center of the image while an Ironworker welds the supporting angle iron in place. I chose this image because I like the way the figures are arranged from the foreground through the frame. I also like the way the welding arc is sparking and the way the welder is positioned in the image.
As in most of my work this too is a HDR image created from a three frame bracket set of +2, 0 and -2 EV exposures. I had to use an anti-ghosting setting of 100% in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 to address the many different poses the figures were in between frames. The ability to shoot handheld images of people movin
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This second image also shows the Ironworkers welding and placing the steel bridge decking. The decking will support the concrete during the pouring of the roadway after the Ironworkers place reinforcing rebar across the completed bridge deck prior to pouring of the concrete. Once again you can see the power of the NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 anti-ghosting feature, especially in the way it has rendered the woman’s leg as she kicks the steel decking into place. As in the previous image I had to use a setting of 100% anti-ghosting in order to freeze the action and avoid ghosting artifacts.
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I really liked the way the pre-stressed concrete bridge beams cast their shadows on the ground below them and the strong movement their placement gave to this image. This is also near Slugger Field where the new roadway is taking shape overhead. Once these bridges and roadways are completed traffic will be moved over onto this new roadway and demolition will begin on the old southbound I-65 infrastructure which will be replaced with new bridges and roadway. Once again I followed my normal HDR workflow of NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and Aperture 3 processing.
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This final image in today’s post is once again from beneath the concrete bridge beams for the new southbound I-65. I shot this using my 12-24 mm Nikkor lens and decided to take it into Photoshop CS5 after merging the bracket set in order to correct the lens distortion inherent in such a wide angle shot. This too is a HDR image created from a three handheld frame bracket set merged in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and finished in Aperture 3.
Jack Alpha On Top Of Big Four Bridge
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This image is a single frame that I used NIK HDR EFex Pro 2 and Aperture 3 to process. By using NIK’s U-Point Technology feature I was able to enhance and fine tune the tonality of the oranges and blues of Jack’s welding jacket while maintaining the natural colors of the river and skyline in the background. I was in the man lift basket which allowed me to shoot him from a safe vantage point above the bridge. I am especially pleased with the way the arc of his welder has maintained it’s brilliance and the way the sparks are spraying to the right side of the frame.
This composition has several elements that make it strong. There is the angle of the bridge safety rail in the foreground to the Kennedy bridge in the middle ground and the Clark Memorial Bridge beyond that. There are also the complementary colors of the jacket, safety harness and the river below all of which work in harmony to unify the composition. Finally there is the way the safety harness and Jack’s arm create rhyme in the photograph along with the repetitive linearity of the bridges and handrail.
