Tag: barges

Tugboats, Trains and a Tanker Truck

These past few days driving around the city I’ve seen a lot of freight trains. I pulled over to the curb in the Strip District by the junkyard to catch the Wheeling Lake Erie cars overhead. And while visiting at my friend’s house I love to watch the tugboats push the barges on the Ohio River. The tanker truck was in front of me on the RDFleming Bridge while at a red light. Lots of demolition on the hillside there, too. Right now, as I write this post just before bed, I can hear the train whistle repeat itself loudly in the night.

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Four out of Five

The 2015 Annual Report on the Blog came from WordPress .

Four out of five most viewed blogposts this year were NOT published in 2015.

Just one of the most viewed was posted this year.

Not sure what to think about the most popular posts viewed in 2015 date back to 2010.   Huh?

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Snow Day Tugboat and Barges Push Through the River Ice

Pittsburgh Skyline in Snow

View of the Monongahela River and skyline from Grandview Avenue.  (Stef, do you think it is smiing?)

DSC02806

See the path where the tug pusning the barges has cut through the ice?

Duquesne incline

Duquesne Incline in the snow.  A path left where the tug and barge cut through the rivers.

OHIO RIVER ICE

Three Rivers Stadium and the Ohio River

School got called off so I went to take some photographs on the way home.

1degree and -16 windchill.   I didn’t stay long with my cameras.

My friends Deb and Sy live downstream along the Ohio River.  They emailed me the cell phone photos they took at eye level as the tug cut through frozen Ohio River ice 

Deb and Sy Photo
Deb and Sy Photo
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Tugboat Pushes Barges on the Mon

Shot through a chain-link fence.

I was in the passenger seat and I had my camera out. The 70-200 lens.

We were headed to the wedding reception from McKeesport to Greentree. (Lots of double ee)

Crossing the McKeesport-Duquesne Bridge. A truss bridge.

And there was a tugboat pushing filled barges on the Monongahela. (Monongahela means “Falling Banks”)

Pushed the shutter and shot shot shot as fast as I could, no chance to change settings. Lucked out with the cables on the edge and the gull in flight. The chain link fence gives the photo a soft haze and fuzz to the sharpness.

I’d asked my friend to drive a little more slowly but everything whizzes by when you are moving and it was unrealistic to go slow on the bridge. Couldn’t have done it if I were driving as there was no place to pull over. It was a squeeze.

and might as well show you the failed shots, the ones with the bridge cables, the blocking the view, the actual fence.

Photography can be exasperating. You would like to get it right.

There was no time for a turnaround, rerun, do-over.

It was the one shot that worked. Lucky day. Oh yes, at least three below that didn’t.

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Ohio River Barges in the Rain

Someone asked me a couple of weeks ago if I could photograph and barge and a tug.  And I’ve been trying.  When I can….Problem is, that the times I have captured it, the light is wrong, it’s raining, I couldn’t get access to the riverfront.  Today I was at a friend’s house on Neville Island and I’d asked her about the tugs and barges going by her house.  ALL THE TIME she said.  And they did go by, Empty, filled, just a tugboat not pulling or pushing any barges.  Problem is it started to rain. And it would not stop.  Trying to capture a specific scene has taught me a lot about how I photograph things.

Most of the time I see something and just photograph it.  Or I think about something, have an idea and go and find it.   The light might be great, the garbage has a treasure in it, the kids are ignoring me, I drive by something I just can’t believe it is right there in front of me.  Now- try to capture something specific.  I am not as good at that assignment I’ve just learned.  It would be as a true assignment like a National Geographic photographer.  Stake it out. Camp out.  Know the ins and outs. Shoot thousands of frames.  Monkey around with your results.  Do it again.  Different time of day.  Return to the scene. Try a different angle, different lens and or camera. Shoot. Shoot some more.

It isn’t that I am not that serious about shooting a specific photograph, I just couldn’t  make it come together for this one.  Exasperating and frustrating.

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