Christopher Halloran Photography » industrial

New Orleans

Chris H. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:54:26 +0000

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.

An egret nesting in Audubon Park.

The Oak Alley Plantation in Lutcher, Louisiana

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

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

Stephen, hard at work.

Mesa Light Rail

Chris H. — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:25:32 +0000

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.

Bridges

Chris H. — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 20:43:09 +0000

Roosevelt Lake Bridge is the longest two-lane, single-span, steel-arch bridge in North America. It is a graceful, elegant structure, which, with its reflection, vaguely resembles either a football or the ICHTHYS insignia from Christian symbology.

Lisa Dub

Chris H. — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:14:28 +0000

I recently discovered a couple of cool, grittier locations not far from where I live and was looking for an excuse to use them in a shoot. Fortunately, Lisa had an opening in her schedule. We had a fun couple of hours traipsing around train tracks and old factories. These are two of the images from that shoot.

Gas Station – Night

Chris H. — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 20:53:33 +0000

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.

Walk Like an Egyptian

Chris H. — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:42:17 +0000

Unless the Diamondbacks are playing, downtown Phoenix on a Saturday afternoon in the summer is like a scene from The Omega Man. Desolate. Just south of Chase Field, across the railroad tracks, you drive along street after street without seeing a soul, half expecting mutant survivors of a nuclear war to emerge from one of the alleys.

On one of those streets, I spotted this painting of Anubis, the Egyptian god charged with protecting the dead, on the door of a warehouse. Not sure I want to know what was inside that building. I took a bunch of shots and was just packing up my gear when I saw a cyclist approaching from my left.

I quickly changed the shooting mode of the camera to a higher frame rate and started shooting just as the cyclist entered the frame. He was in the shot for four frames, the last of which was this one. Serendipitously, he and Anubis had called each other that morning and decided to wear matching outfits.

Orange You Sorry?

Chris H. — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:26:50 +0000

Several months ago, I was out exploring my new hometown and looking for interesting potential images. Just to the northeast of where I live, I saw a little taqueria that looked like a sombrero painted in the colors of the Mexican flag. Cool. Mental note.

A couple of mornings ago I was up very early and finally decided to get that shot. It was before 5, so the sun hadn’t yet risen and the sky was a beautiful pale blue. Perfect. I arrive at the taco stand and discover that the owners had painted it orange. So, now it’s an orange sombrero. Nothing cool about it anymore. I need to learn that lesson. How many times have I seen a potentially fabulous image, thought I’d come back to get it later, and never return? Too many times. I need to remember: carpe diem.

On the way home from my failed mission, I passed the local airfield and saw this warehouse, which I thought might make an interesting backdrop for a portrait. This was my favorite of the test shots. A big thank you to photoshop’s distort filter for conquering the converging verticals.

Power Plant

Chris H. — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:03:05 +0000

The largest coal-fired power plant in the western hemisphere can be found in the middle of Georgia, about 95 miles southeast of Atlanta. I came across this factoid in a fabulous essay by John McPhee published first in The New Yorker and later as a chapter entitled Coal Train in his book Uncommon Carriers. I had to see it for myself, so I arranged for a tour and twisted the arms of various family members to accompany me to Plant Scherer, which is near Juliette, the town made famous by the movie Fried Green Tomatoes. Plant Scherer truly is astonishing to behold. This image was taken on the roof of the facility facing one of the enormous cooling towers.