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Port of Long Beach

May 14, 2012
industrial, photography, photojournalism, travel
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I recently spent part of a day shooting the operations of the Port of Long Beach, something I have long wanted to do. For security and safety reasons, the logistics of photographing a busy port can be complicated. I have driven around both the Port of Long Beach and the neighboring Port of Los Angeles a couple of times to try to figure out vantage points from which I could shoot without either being arrested or hit by a truck.

That problem was solved recently when I discovered that the Port of Long Beach offers weekly boat tours. Instead of shooting from land, I was able to capture my images from the water, out of range of the trucks and with the blessing of law enforcement.

I love shooting big industrial landscapes. What they lack in conventional beauty, they often make up for in aesthetically pleasing geometry and symmetry. I also like being witness to the innovative ways we solve big problems. How do we efficiently transport as many cars as we can from one continent to another? How do we reduce the cost of launching a rocket into space? How do we efficiently load and unload a ship the size of four football fields?

Here, for example, is a group of gantry cranes used to load and unload container ships:

Gantry Cranes – Port of Long Beach, California

Because the Earth is nearest to space at the middle of the planet, rockets are occasionally launched from floating platforms at the equator in order to reduce costs. Long Beach is home to one such  platform, called the Sea Launch, which is towed by a ship called the Sea Launch Commander. Here they are:

The Sea Launch and Sea Launch Commander – Port of Long Beach, California

Electricity is produced at the port by the Harbor Cogeneration Facility, which is a 100 megawatt natural gas-fired electrical generation plant.

Harbor Cogeneration Facility – Port of Long Beach, California

In addition to all of this 21st century technology, the Port also has some throwbacks to the past, including the Queen Mary…

Queen Mary – Long Beach, California

…and some Art Deco warehouse facilities, dating from the mid 1950s:

Pier D – Port of Long Beach

 

Power Plant – Dawn

November 30, 2011
industrial, landscapes, photography
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I love photographing industrial facilities. As with so many things, seen from the right perspective, they can be incredibly beautiful. The English photographer, Michael Kenna, has made a series of sensational photographs of power plants and other industrial operations that are worth checking out. In addition to admiring his talent, I am also envious of the access he was granted to photograph these sites.  Always tricky, trying to photograph industrial facilities. Security guards tend to get a little antsy when they see the tripod and the long lens. Fortunately, in this instance I was far enough away that I was invisible to the powers that be.

Power Plant

Power Plant - Dawn

New Orleans

April 15, 2009
adults, animals, architecture, industrial, landscapes, photography, portraits, travel
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My friend Stephen is a native of New Orleans, although he hasn’t lived there since he finished his first graduate degree.  Recently, however, he was asked  to write the screen adaptation of Walker Percy’s novel The Moviegoer, which is set in New Orleans, so he decided to rent a house in the Garden District while he finishes the screenplay. Having never been to New Orleans I, of course, invited myself for a visit, from which I have just returned.  I fell in love with the city.  It has been knocked down pretty hard in the years since Katrina and still has a long way to go before it is fully recovered, but it is nonetheless still a beautiful, exotic city. Here are a couple of images from the trip.

Lake Pontchartrain late in the afternoon.

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An egret nesting in Audubon Park.

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The Oak Alley Plantation in Lutcher, Louisiana

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The Hale Boggs Bridge over the Mississippi River near Luling, Louisiana

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I don’t know which came first – the cemetery or the Dow Chemical St. Charles plant.  Hahnville, Louisiana.

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Stephen, hard at work.

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Mesa Light Rail

March 12, 2009
architecture, cityscapes, industrial
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This morning was a gorgeous – bright blue sky filled with drifting cumulus clouds.  After a week filled with meetings and editing, I wanted to get outside and shoot, so I grabbed the camera early and wandered down to the new light rail station recently opened on the western edge of Mesa.  I started shooting on the platform, but was quickly chased off by a security guard.  What is it with this bizarre paranoia about photographers?  In any case, I got a  few shots on the platform and then started moving around to various vantage points  around the station.  I liked this image both because of the beautiful sky in the background, but also because the sleek, modern train and station provide a nice contrast to other images I have of the older, fustier Mesa.

Gas Station – Night

September 12, 2008
industrial, landscapes, photography
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I was out the other night trying to find a good vantage point from which to photograph a  dramatic end-of-the-monsoon-season lightning storm and was not having much success.  Either it was raining too hard or I was in the wrong place and, finally, I was just a little too late. Driving home, however, this commercial fueling station caught my eye.  In this age of fossil fuels, there is something reassuring about a filling station on a dark road. For prints of this image, please visit my Etsy site.

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