I had a chance to take an infrared camera for a spin. Please click the image to see more photographs. Also stay tuned, likely there will be more infrared photography in the future!
Mohawk River at Sunrise
Artificial light sources have a long history, and have made great strides since fire was the primary source of artificial light. Various forms of combustion have been used more recently than you might realize, with gas lamp street lighting commonly used into the 20th century. In the late 19th, with the advent of electricity, electric lights were developed. Electric lighting provided safer and brighter lighting, for many uses, including in theaters.
Theater is of particularly interest to me, as I became involved in technical aspects of theater as teenager. By the time I learned about lighting the fixtures used halogen bulbs, neat and tidy; producing hundreds or thousands of watts. Modern at the time, these lights run on 120 volt electricity, emitting light and heat. While these kinds of light are still in use, they are being replaced by LED fixtures, using about 1/5th the electricity to create a similar amount of light, and much less heat.
Earlier fixtures used carbon arc lamps. I’ve read about these lamps, but hadn’t seen one. Carbon arc lamps run on high voltage, to produce an arc between the electrodes. As the arc burns the electrodes are consumed, requiring the operator to adjust the electrodes to maintain a burning arc.
I was recently at an abandoned theater, I was pleasantly surprised to find a (mostly) intact spotlight, complete with carbon arc electrodes. In the image below, you can see the electrodes, still mounted in the fixture that allows them to be adjusted as the are consumed.
I recently visited a former State Hospital in Massachusetts. The Hospital was originally a TB & Insane Asylum. One of the buildings we visited was Violent Women’s Psych ward. Handling those with significant mental health issues is no doubt a significant challenge. The conditions that patients were held in this ward are seemingly as harsh as those in prison. Small barren cells, with small windows. The inside of the doors covered in scratches and scrape marks from those held inside. An apparently bloody bathtub remains in a disassembled bathroom. Large ducts stand in the attic appearing like a transformer ready to spring to action. In the woods nearby hundreds of nameless graves remain, with small markers barely taller than the small plants growing on the forrest floor. I can only hope those who would have been in institutions a generation ago are better off in the now common group homes which have become common.
Early movie projectors and theater lights used carbon arc lamps to generate light. These lamps required operators to adjust the carbon rods to maintain the arc generating the light. As the lamp is operated, the rods get shorter, much like welding. These maintenance intensive lamps fell out of favor in the 60s and 70s. Decades later, notes remain on the walls of the projection booth at the abandoned Everett Square theater. I assume these notes on the walls were to help the projectionists know when to change the carbon rods. Additionally, a cabinet still holds spare parts for projectors removed long ago.
Or perhaps a self portrait. This photo is from a few years ago, I was working a scaffold with a co-worker. We were between a projector and the screen, creating an iconic silhouette. It immediately reminded me of a similar photograph my father took many years ago, which hung in my childhood home.
One of the more intriguing aspects of exploring abandoned buildings is finding things in the darkness when I edit the photos after I get home. Some of this would have been nearly impossible on film, there wasn’t enough range in the film. Now images can be merged, noise removed. These photos all held surprises for me.. The rooms were nearly pitch black. With proper exposure and some work in post, an image can show details you’d never see with bringing lights in to a room.
When I was little, there was a tragic fire not far from my house. It had a profound effect on me, and I reportedly vowed to not let something like that happen again. The first week of college I signed up for the rescue squad, mostly on a limb, the childhood vow long forgotten. When I returned for summer break, I joined the fire department to keep my skills up when school was out. For 19 years I’ve volunteered, responding to thousands of calls in the community.
The fire service is an amazing experience. There are easy calls, there are hard calls. There are calls that are very rewarding, and there are calls that rip your heart out. There are calls that go smoothly and calls you feel were a disaster. I’ve been on all of them. That is only part of the experience. The other experience is that of brotherhood that exists fire service. Not only are we there for the community, we are there for each other. After a bad call, or when you need to fix something at home, you can count on the members of the department to be there.
Like many activities with which I’ve been involved, I find my way in to leadership. I’ve been an officer for 14 years. I started as a Lieutenant, and worked my way up the ranks to Asst. Chief. A few months ago, I made the difficult decision to take a break from being an officer. It’s bittersweet. There will be less work, and more time to explore interests that have been on the back burner too long. I’ll be riding in back of the cab going to calls, reporting to the young guys who are in the boots I was years ago.
The last days in office were busy, with many calls. The photo below is from Christmas Day, to my left is the Chief of the department, Chris Nobes. Chris joined the department a few years after I did, and we’ve been officers together for many years. Then next call I go on, we won’t be standing side by side like this, but we’ll be working towards the same goal none the less. Most importantly, we’ll always have each other’s backs.
At a working fire, 12/25/2018. The fire started in the basement, and the home owners lost a large collection that represented years of work. Luckily, their fire alarm alerted the alarm monitoring service, and we were able to contain the fire to the basement. Photo used with permission of Sidewinder Photography.
I am looking forward to the coming year, new adventures in photography, and at the railroad museum. I’ll still be going on calls, and looking forward to being an advisor to our new program. Training the next generation of firefighters, we have begun accepting 16 and 17 year olds to our brand new Junior Firefighter program. Some of whom will be 2nd or 3rd generation firefighters. Even with new adventures, some traditions continue.
I’ve had a fascination with trains since I was little. My father took out the model trains he has as a child when I was 5 or 6. We spent may days building a layout in the basement, and many afternoons along side railroad tracks watch trains roll by. I’ve also always been a bit of a gear head. This year I began volunteering at Steamtown National Historic Site, working in the shops. Many of the shop personnel are involved in rail operations as well. On December 1st, there was a Santa Train, and I had the opportunity to see the crew fire up Baldwin Locomotive #26. I’m happy to have a few photos to share of the crew working working.
It’s hard to pass up the opportunity to go somewhere new. This past Saturday is was about 15 degrees out for the explore. The frost was on the inside…
Sometimes photographs become happy accidents. For me, one of the criteria is when a photograph somehow references photography. This past weekend I got to chase a train from Steamtown National Park, where I volunteer in the Locomotive Shop. I took over 200 hundred images at the event. This one image, I accidentally capture a member of the crowd photographing the train.
In the Northwest corner of Connecticut, there is a small museum dedicated to antique machinery. They have dozens of farm tractors, old excavators, narrow gage trains and stationary steam engines, among their collection. Some of the equipment is operable, including a small steam locomotive. It’s worth the visit if you are interested in these types of machines.
Most sites I visit, I return home with well over 100 photographs to sort through, one 3 day trip left me with over 1000. After a shoot, I am usually pretty excited about the images. I also know most people don’t want to look at 100s of images. Ultimately, I won’t consider most of them strong enough to share. I recently visited a site that is one of the most diverse I’ve visited yet. There were cavernous empty buildings which were almost like landscapes. There were shops with tools, gloves and hard hats left behind. There were offices with blueprints, binders and letters strewn about.
Every time I look at the photographs, one or two stand out to be cut. This time the process is moving more slowly than usual. I can’t wait to put up the new gallery, but I need to find the right group of images to share, there are still too many. I’ll leave you with this image for now. More to come, and I promise, it will be worth the wait.
As much as I enjoy photograph, it’s not my 9-5 job. I design Audio-Video Systems and Video Production Systems. Here are a few photos of an installation we finished this week. This church has a new state of the art system, with all the power they need for their band. They can also put up song lyrics, or other information on the back walls of the stage via the projector. There are confidence monitors on the stage for the people speaking.
I photograph a variety of subjects, including wildlife, landscapes and occasionally people.
You can see some Bird Photos here:
In the south end of Troy, there is a large round building, known as the Gas Holder.
Read More
