Tag: outdoors

Sunrise over Louisville’s Towhead Island

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Towhead Island is at the eastern end of Waterfront Park in Louisville, KY.
Towhead Island is at the eastern end of Waterfront Park in Louisville, KY.

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Towhead Island is located in the Ohio River just east of downtown Louisville, Kentucky. It was formed by a barge that sank many years ago and obstructed the channel. Over many decades the river delivered loads of silt and debris which eventually created the island we see today. Not only is it a staging area for barges to be transported down river it is also a mini wildlife refuge hosting a few blue herons and the occasional beaver.

Fall sunrise on the Ohio River in Louisville KY.
Fall foliage at sunrise on Towhead Island in the Ohio River at Louisville KY as seen from the observation deck below the Big Four Bridge.

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Towhead Island also creates a calm protected waterway to the University of Louisville’s boathouse, a police substation and a large marina. The lights on the distant shore are from the Jeff Boat boat building yards in Jeffersonville Indiana. On this particular morning the University of Louisville rowing teams were training and moving along the western end of the island.

Pile Driving Crew at Work On The New Spaghetti Junction Interchange

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Andrew Miokovic Carpenter
Andrew Miokovic Carpenter/Pile Driver

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I spent a little time with a Pile Driving Crew earlier this week as they drove 70 foot steel beams into the earth to build a foundation for another bridge pier. These guys have to get these huge beams upright and then drive them into the ground using a single cylinder diesel “hammer”. They must make sure that the piling in perfectly plumb so that it can transfer the weight of the bridge directly to the bedrock. It is heavy, dirty work and the crew has to pay close attention to every aspect of the process to make certain that the pilings are properly placed

Pile Driver Climbing the "Hammer"
Pile Driver Climbing the “Hammer”

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Once the piling is positioned and ready to be hammered into place one of the crew must climb the hammer frame and set the hammer, a single cylinder diesel engine for driving the pile. In the image above he is climbing into position to do that. The line coming down to his back is a safety line to prevent him falling to the ground in the case of losing his footing.

Pile Driving Crew Positioning the "Hammer"
Pile Driving Crew Positioning the “Hammer”

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In the image above you can see the entire crew working to drive a second section of piling which will extend the length to almost 140 feet. Just above Andrew Miokovic’s shoulder there is a line where this second piling has been welded to a section that is already 65 feet into the ground. The man climbing the hammer is also the welder for the crew and has already welded the beam to the top of the one in the ground.

Pile Driving Crew Positioning the "Hammer" #2
Pile Driving Crew Positioning the “Hammer” #2

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In the above image the hammer motor has been energized and as soon as the man climbing down the hammer frame is clear the motor will be started and the pile will start descending into the earth about 4 to 6 inches each time it fires.

Hammerhead and Slope Wall
Hammerhead and Slope Wall

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Once the work of the pile driving crew is completed other crews of Carpenters and Ironworkers will start building another bridge pier such as the “Hammerhead” in this photo. It would be impossible to install the structural steel that will carry the new roadway without the unseen work that the Pile Drivers do to ensure a solid foundation. As in so many major projects there is a lot of work done that we never see or consider when viewing the final product.

Structural Steel Heading East
Structural Steel Heading East

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This final image in the post shows the structural steel that will eventually carry traffic east out of Louisville onto Interstate 64. I chose this composition to use the leading lines of the shadows to carry the viewer’s eye down along the sloping terrain and into the background. The three engineers  happened to come into the scene as I was composing the image so I attempted to capture each man just as he stepped out of the shadow lines.

All of these images are HDR images created using a three frame bracket set of +2, 0 and -2 EV exposures. I merged them using NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and then took the merged file into Adobe Camera Raw where I adjusted the final Brightness, Fill Light, Recovery and Exposure. Once I was happy with the image I returned it to Photoshop CS5 where I performed a Levels Adjustment, Lens Correction where needed and applied Smart Sharpening. After that I added another layer where I tweaked the final details using NIK Viveza.

 

Dramatic Clouds in HDR

Posted on by Nick Roberts

Last Saturday morning I went down to Waterfront Park for an event on the river. The sky was full of dramatic clouds that really captured my imagination. The weather was rather raw and the turnout was low so I decided to take advantage of the ominous looking clouds instead. I thought the clouds would be good candidates for HDR images so I shot three frame bracket sets of each scene.

I decided to process the bracket sets in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 first and then returned them to Aperture 3 for some contrast, straightening and color channel adjustments. I then took them into NIK Viveza and played around with some very minor tweaks to them. I liked the results and the way even minor adjustments in Viveza had great impact on the resulting images. I even took one version into Topaz B&W Effects where I applied an antique style effect that I created a few weeks ago for another series of images.

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Carpenters Working On Concrete Forms (Gallery)

Posted on by Nick Roberts

The images in this gallery are of the Carpenters working on concrete forms on the Indiana Approach for the Downtown Span of the Ohio River Bridges Project. The carpenters are installing cooling lines that will carry water from the river through the concrete after it sets in order to keep it from overheating as it cures. Concrete cures due to a catalytic reaction between the cement and other chemicals in the mixture. If the concrete overheats during the curing process it may not be strong enough to do it’s job which is why it is crucial that some way to transfer the heat from curing out of the mass of material.

I processed the full color versions of these images using Adobe Camera Raw using a series of steps that i learned from reading Scot Kelby’s book on using Photoshop CS5. Rather than use my usual method of creating HDR images from three frame bracket sets I instead decided to work with the “normal” exposure alone and see what I could accomplish using ACR.

After creating the color images I decided to use [thirstylink linkid=”13827″ linktext=”Topaz” class=”thirstylink” title=”Topaz”] B&W Effects to produce versions that have an antique feel to them. I used various adjustments to create my own preset that desaturated the colors and added a vignette of faded edges. I then applied a border from Topaz that I thought fit the idea I had for the final images. I saved this preset to use later on other images that may benefit from similar treatment.

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Gallery of Images from the Tower Crane Erection on Pier Five

Posted on by Nick Roberts

This Gallery of images shows the men and materials that went into constructing the tower crane on pier five of the downtown span of the Ohio River Bridges Project.