Monthly Archives: March 2013

And the First Piece is Away!

As I mentioned before, the first piece was free. I hadn’t planned for a time lapse. I had no idea I was going to time my visit for when this happened, nor that it was going to happen so soon. However, I was there with the camera on a tripod so I manually shot a sequence and cut it together. It is short but you get the idea. I left town shortly after this so missed the new section being put in place. I shall hope to be around when the second span is worked on.

Cutting Through the Night

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I headed back to the work site later the same day to see how things were progressing. I wanted to know how fast things were moving but I also wanted to see the work at night. The cutting torches they are using provide a great shower of sparks but, during the day, it is hard to make that impression since they are not very conspicuous. If they were cutting at night, I figured the effect would be more pronounced. That certainly was the case.

Moreover, they had got a lot further than I had expected. The section was almost totally cut free. It was now rest on the barge ready to be moved when the final cuts were made. As you can see from above, it wasn’t long before this happened. They really had made swift work of the first stage of the task.

Starting the removal

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The start of the bridge replacement program I mentioned here was swift. One of the first things they did after getting the trains shut down was to open the span that wasn’t being worked on. This provided room to move the barges around with their loads without obstruction. Then the team got to work on cutting loose the section that is to be replaced. There was plenty of structure to be cut free first before the main section could be removed. Teams were busy cutting and removing all day. The project is underway around the clock. Some of the shots are in the gallery below.

These Things Are Tiny!

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I shouldn’t be so old that I find some of the technological developments amazing but every once in a while you see something that impresses you. I have been shooting with cameras that use compact flash cards for a long time now. The form factor hasn’t changed in all of that time. The SD card was seen as the way ahead but somehow the Compact Flash has always remained ahead of it. The XQD card now seems to be the next step but we will save that for another day.

My cameras have a compact flash and an SD slot. I have SD cards in them as backups if I suddenly need a little extra capacity but they aren’t used much. The Compact Flash has always been faster to write to. I do use them in my GoPro. Recently B&H had a special on cards and, since I am about to buy a new GoPro and it uses the micro SD card, I took the opportunity to pick one up cheaply. These things are small.

In the above picture you see a Compact Flash (16GB) and the adapter for the micro SD to fit in a standard SD slot. Then you see the micro SD in the middle. It is a 32GB card. Am I the only one who thinks that thing is tiny?

Wells Street Bridge Prep

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A major engineering activity is underway in the city at the moment. The Chicago River is crossed by many bridges. Most of them are bascule bridges and they are part of a cycle of maintenance with each bridge getting refurbished periodically. Metalwork repair and repainting is usually the order of business but, sometimes, they need more significant work. The Wells Street Bridge is undergoing just such a work program. Part of it is being repaired but some of the metalwork needs replacement.

This bridge is more complex than some. It has two levels with street traffic on the lower level and the “L” on the upper level. Replacement is, therefore, more problematic. Shutting down a line on the “L” is not done lightly. The street traffic is more easily diverted so, having that closed is easier to handle and it has been shut for a while now as the preparation for the repair was underway. The bridge has two spans and they are being done one at a time. The south span is first. They have prepared the section that is remaining and now they are cutting off the rest.

A new span has been constructed offsite. This is floated to the location, the old section is cut off and the new section bolted on. That makes it sound so simple, doesn’t it? It obviously is a little more complex, not least because it has to be done in just over a week including replacing the train tracks and electrical systems. These shots show the site in preparation for the big task. I will provide updates as the job progresses. Sadly, I have to be out of town during some of the work but will show what I can.

Snowy Trees

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Unlike last winter, this one has been a bit colder in the Chicago area. It hasn’t been consistently cold but there have been some cold times and we have had a bit of snow. We don’t tend to get too much snow in the city itself. It does happen but usually the areas around the city get hit a lot more than we do. It is easy to forget this but, when we head out to other places, we get a reminder.

A recent trip out to Barrington was one of those times. As we drove along the roads through the country, there was plenty of snow about. Lots of it was attached to the trees and it had clumped together in quite an interesting way. It looked like large cotton balls attached to the branches. Sadly, when you are driving along a road with nowhere to pull off, you can’t easily get a picture.

Once we got to Barrington, though, I saw some trees near the parking lot that looked similar. Nancy headed inside (it was cold so she was no fool) while I wandered across the lot. Just a phone to take the pictures with but you use what you have. The location wasn’t quite as pretty as the roads we had come along but you get an idea of what it was like. The sun was out and the temperature was rising so some of the snow was already melting off the branches so I think I was quite lucky to get what I did.

What Does Humble Mean

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This isn’t a photography post although it arose from a photographer. It actually goes much further back but I was reading a blog post by Syl Arena, a great photographer who wrote a couple of books, one of which I have. I like the book and learned a lot from it. He was writing about updating his bio and this updated bio included the following sentence.

“I’m humbled to say I have written two bestselling books on lighting…”

This caught my eye since I think the use of humble has changed recently. I have heard people accepting awards talking about being humbled. Here, Syl is talking about being humbled to have sold lots of books. I really think people don’t understand humble anymore.

If you think you are something special and then learn that you aren’t, that could be a humbling experience. If you meet someone who is demonstrably more capable than you are, that can be a humbling experience. If you find yourself stranded in the middle of a vast ocean with no way home, that can be a humbling experience. Being told you are great or seeing proof that you are is not humbling!

Why is it used then? I don’t know. I have a thought as to what it might be but I can’t get inside the heads of others and say why they use it and I am certainly not trying to put Syl down in this case – he is just an example of something happening a lot. Maybe it is a fashion that is being followed. However, I suspect it is a way of pointing out that you are not big headed about your success while acknowledging you have been successful. Being grateful would seem a more appropriate term but I don’t control others and I probably won’t find myself in a situation that needs me to worry about addressing such success. If I do, I wonder whether I will really be feeling humble?