Focus On: The C&O Canal

As should surprise no one who's read this blog or followed my photos, urban industry is a particular interest of mine. Unfortunately for me when I was living in Washington D.C., our nations capital never had much in the way of industry and what there was is largely gone. Fortunately, what little bit there had been had (in part) been clustered along the C&O Canal in Georgetown and while it had all been refurbished by the time I moved there in 2008, the area still maintained a little bit of an industrial feel. It was an area I shot many, many times over the next two years.

One of the first photos I shot after moving to D.C.

Possibly the best photo I took during my time D.C. Certainly my favorite photo of mine from D.C.

From my short lived infatuation with Infrared Photography.

Originally I had wanted to shoot the canal in all seasons, but after my first winter I quickly learned that the canal is kept dry during the winter months making for a boring photo. The Snowpocalypse of 2010 helped me out here.

From some angles it has an industrial feel and from others it has an almost antebellum look.

Hipster Holocost 2010

Much like the Goose Island Bridge or the Kinzie Ave. drawbridge, I've always thought that the Ashland Ave. drawbridge is another distinctive part of Chicago. Unfortunately, unlike those other bridges, there are far fewer vantage points from which to shoot it. After getting frustrated from trying to shoot from the middle of the other Ashland Ave. drawbridge - and having the vibrations from crossing traffic throw off my shots - I moved off to the north side of the bridge to shoot from solid ground.

There had been heavy rainstorms earlier that day which can usually make for dramatic sunsets but in this case, the solid cloud bank just sort of produced a weird sunset. But I didn't have a good shot of this bridge before, so at least I checked this off the list.

Focus On: Goose Island Bridge

The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific railroad bridge at the north end of Goose Island, where the rail line crosses North Ave. is - or was - in my opinion one of the most distinctive elements of "Chicago" in the City. I've been passing this bridge as long as I've been alive and while much (if not all) of the industrial character of the neighborhood has changed drastically, it has always remained.

Well, not quite - a few years ago the city renovated the bridge to make it more friendly for pedestrians to access Goose Island (something that would have never been necessary for large parts of Chicago's history). While I'm not a huge fan of the renovation - I prefer my industrial age artifacts to be suitably aged and weathered - it's far better than if they'd torn the bridge down or replaced it with something else.

The Proctor and Gamble factory and the other industrial behemoths of Lincoln Park aren't coming back, but at least this is still here.

When I got into photography seriously, I knew this would be one of the first places I'd want to shoot.

The bridge today after the renovation.

Trees and high tech industries on Goose Island. Historically unthinkable.

City in a Garden indeed.

The view from the refurbished bridge.

If this is still active rail, I can't imagine that it will be much longer.

For further information on this bridge, check out this link.

Making the Sausage

I've written previously about standing around waiting for the light to come together for my shot of St. Peter's Basilica but what I didn't show was one of things I did to keep myself entertained until the light changed.

Not much to say about this shot except for the two things I think I'd do differently next time. First, I think I'd unclip my strap from my camera bag so that I could step back a little farther - there was really no reason to stay clipped in, in retrospect. Second, I would have left the back screen on its "normal" settings - normally it's full of histograms and other data, but I changed it for the shot, thinking it would make for a better photo. Maybe it does, and maybe it doesn't - probably should have shot both ways to be sure. One of these days I'll remember to fully work a scene and not just take one shot and call it a day.