Hudson River Crossing - photograph by Shaun O'Boyle
04/30/2011
04/29/2011
04/19/2011
04/17/2011
12/26/2010
Hoosac Transect images
I’ve posted a selection of images from the year long – and still ongoing – Hoosac Transect project. It’s a project I have been working on since January 2010, photographing along the Hoosac Tunnel rail corridor. It’s the largest project I’ve taken on to date, covering a 200 mile long corridor from Albany New York, through the southern corner of Vermont, and on through the old manufacturing cities in northern Massachusetts to Boston. The images shown at this link are a small sample of the edit from the project. The content is more subtle than my other work, with deep roots, touching many areas that interest me.
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10/04/2010
Weekend Shoot
Some nice light and fog this past weekend on Sunday morning. The air was clear with high contrast, but along the river valley the fog hung for hours, and made for some nice shooting.
Hoosic River, Pownal, VT
Drive-in, North Hoosick
Rail Crossing and Bridge
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08/10/2010
Iphone friendly theme added
I’ve added an iphone friendly theme to this site, so that mobile users can view posts on this site easier. Let me know if you see any problems with the site if you are viewing with an iphone or other mobile device.
Below are a few photographs from the Hoosac Transect project. This is an ongoing project which began as a study of the Hoosac Tunnel, and has grown into a project photographing anything interesting along this old rail line.
More photographs can be seen at this link here.
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05/27/2010
Hoosac Tunnel East Portal
East Portal Hoosic Tunnel
Another visit to the Hoosac Tunnel east portal in Florida MA this past weekend. On this visit the tunnel had less diesel smoke from passing trains, so I was able to get a better photograph.
I was photographing the ruins of the nearby compressor building. The compressor building, while there isn’t much left to look at now, converted water power into compressed air to power drills used during construction of the tunnel. Previous to this drilling for setting explosives was done by hand.
The infrastructure that was required for the construction of the compressor building was significant, requiring daming the Deerfield River and constructing a long canal to provide the turbines with water to drive the compressors. In the end the water supply proved to be unreliable, so the compressors were converted to steam power.
I included some photographs from Jerry Kelley’s website, where he has a great overview of the history of the construction of the Hoosac Tunnel.
Compressor Building
Compressor Building
Compressor Building in ruin - date unknown
Go here to see Jerry’s pages on the compressor and canal.
http://www.jkrails.net/Compressor.htm
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05/16/2010
Hoosac Tunnel – East and West Portals
Hoosac Tunnel - East Portal
Hoosac Tunnel West Portal
These photographs – both taken on the same day, show the east and west portal of the Hoosac Tunnel. I shot the west portal first, early in the morning, then drove over the Hoosac mountain range to get to the east portal, during which time a train came through, leaving a lot of diesel smoke in the tunnel. Still an interesting comparison of the two end of one of the oldest tunnels in the US. The west end is looking pretty shabby, with the remains of a broken door covering the original beautiful stone work entrance. This should be removed, it is a historic tunnel, bought with the lives of over 200 men during the 25 years of construction, and it deserves to be better tended and preserved. The two ends are almost 5 miles apart in a straight line, but the tunnel ascends from both ends to a high point in the center, so you can’t see through to the other portal.
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05/11/2010
Fig Tree
A new loosely defined project. Photograph the architecture, and whatever else is interesting, along a corridor defined by an old rail line. The idea is that the rail line was the seed that many of these towns and industries sprang from. So it is the root of these communtities, even though that rail line has all but ceased to exist.
An analogy that comes to mind is a strangler fig tree, which grows around a host tree. Eventually the host tree dies and decays and disappears, leaving a massive fig tree with a hollow interior the shape of the host tree. This project is all about shooting that fig tree, the interior and exterior.
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04/23/2010
Central Shaft, Hoosac Tunnel
Central Shaft, Hoosic Tunnel
Over 1000 feet deep, the Central Shaft sits above the Hoosac Rail Tunnel to vent coal (originally) and Diesel fumes. The huge fans are shown here venting diesel fumes, and the smell was very strong. The sound and smell created a surreal, industrial environment in what is otherwise a rural mountaintop scene. The shaft was used to ferry miners in and out of the tunnel during construction, and was the site of an accident where 13 miners were killed when the hoist house exploded from a gas leak. I’ll be posting more on the Hoosac Tunnel later, it may be the start of a much larger project.
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04/22/2010
Hoosic Tunnel
Hoosic Tunnel, in Florida MA. Started in 1855, the tunnel connects the Deerfield River Valley in Florida and the Hoosic River Valley in North Adams.
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