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Schuylkill Co-Generation Plant and Arsenal Bridge, Philadelphia, PA, 2018 (cdn.masto.host)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/photography@fedia.io
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Schuylkill Co-Generation Plant and Arsenal Bridge, Philadelphia, PA, 2018.All the pixels, moving slowly, at flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/42#photography

A mid-century power plant, with four prominent smokestacks atop an industrial building, at left across a small river. At right, a railroad drawbridge crosses the river, with a freight train slowly streaking across.

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[–] 1 point 11 months ago

@mattblaze what do you do when you find out that your 70-year-old Dad might have become a rave promoter and he wants you to help with the socials and your main outlet is Mastodon?

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    [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    @mattblaze The sky really complements the subject. Great capture.

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    [–] [S] 1 point 11 months ago (6 children)

    This was captured with the Rodenstock 70mm/5.6 HR Digaron-W lens and the Phase One IQ3-100 back. A bit of vertical shift was used to keep everything straight. A 1/2 sec exposure provided just the right amount of motion blur for the passing train.The power plant generates electricity (now oil fired, converted from coal) as well as steam for Philly's Center City steam loop. The rail bridge extends the former Pennsylvania Railroad's "High Line" into south Philly's Greenwich rail yard.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 11 months ago (5 children)

    I shot several versions of this, with exposures that kept the moving train sharp or blurred it to varying degrees. I think this was the most successful attempt, with the train blurred enough to suggest motion, but not so much that it's unrecognizable.Motion can be a central part of a still photograph.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 11 months ago (4 children)

    Power plants are often regarded as utilitarian eyesores, and are rarely (generally only under public pressure) built to look beautiful or interesting, (London's Battersea Power Station was a notable exception). Generally, like here, any beauty to be found is accidental, a direct consequence of interesting form happening to follow from function.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    @mattblaze I still think the Waste Incineration Plant in Vienna (which also supplies heat to the city) is the undisputed winner in the beautification stakes with its Hundertwasser design. But I agree that the stark, often brutalist architecture of power plants has its own beauty. I love Torness Power Station on the beautiful East Coast of Scotland and Dungeness, down in the South, particularly when viewed from Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage garden. Both give quite an eery vibe

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 11 months ago (2 children)

    Arguably, given the health and environmental effects of things like power plants, perhaps they should be ugly. But ugliness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.In any case, if you like this kind of stuff, let me strongly recommend the work of Hilla and Bernd Becher. fraenkelgallery.com/artists/be

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    @mattblaze oh if you’re into this question have a look for Wolfgang Sievers’ work from the 1970s, he’d got into industrial photography and was incredibly good at making processes look beautiful, but eventually wound up questioning the ethical impact of doing that, and stopped

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