Schuylkill Co-Generation Plant and Arsenal Bridge, Philadelphia, 2018.
Too many pixels, not enough colors, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/42660696454/
#photography
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.
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.
Depicting motion is sometimes a central part of a still photograph.
Power plants are often regarded as utilitarian eyesores, and are rarely (generally under public pressure) built to look beautiful or interesting, (London’s Battersea Power Station was an exception). Generally, like here, any beauty to be found is accidental, a direct consequence of interesting form happening to follow from function.
@[email protected] I love this picture.
I’m always struck by how great looking the Richmond and Delaware generating stations on the Delaware River are. If you haven’t see the latter since it became The Battery, it looks fantastic since it’s been cleaned up.
@[email protected] I’ve not seen it recently - definitely on the list next time I’m up that way. Thanks
@[email protected] If you ever get a chance, you might want to try photographing the Torness AGR nuclear power station in Scotland close to sunrise or sunset. It’s right on the coast (for seawater cooling), close by the A1(M) and east coast main line, and looks amazing in the right light (a 1980s-built temple of technology).
@[email protected] Added to the list! Thanks.
Arguably, give 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’ve made it this far, let me strongly recommend the work of Hilla and Bernd Becher. https://fraenkelgallery.com/artists/bernd-and-hilla-becher
