Matt BlazeRavenswood Generating Station ("Big Allis"), Queens, NY, 2024.
All the pixels, but none of the blackouts, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/53732990785
This is a composite of two side-by-side images, each captured with the Rodenstock 50mm/4.0 HR Digaron-W lens (@ f/5.6), shifted left and right +/- 12mm to produce a 205MP 2:1 aspect ratio final image.
The Ravenswood plant, along the East River in Long Island City/Astoria Queens, was built by Con Ed in stages during the early- and mid- 1960's. When finished, it had capacity for about 20% of NYC's electricity demand at the time, as well as producing co-generated steam for the city's steam loop.
Known locally as "Big Allis" (after Allis-Chalmers, the manufacturer of the largest of the four generators in the plant), Ravenswood is fired by both natural gas (now the primary fuel) and oil, and also has the capability (rarely used, as far as I know) to burn coal.
Ravenswood has been linked to a spike in asthma and other respiratory disorders among local residents. There is pressure to decommission the generators and replace them with battery banks to store renewable energy from upstate.
For industrial subjects especially, I usually end up preferring the most straightforward and boring perspective I can find that just lets the subject speak for itself. The masters of this approach were Bernd and Hilla Becher, whose "Basic Forms" work richly repays your attention if you like this kind of stuff. https://www.sfmoma.org/artist/Bernd_and_Hilla_Becher/
(They would have undoubtedly gone for an overcast day to capture Big Allis, but I liked the clouds.)
Ravenswood's four main smokestacks remind me of the Titanic, and the similarity doesn't end there. About a year after Big Allis was put into service and the plant completed, the great blackout of 1965 badly damaged the generator due to a design flaw that required months to identify and mitigate. At least nothing sank.
Nicola@mattblaze They remind me of 'Conspiracy Theory' the 1997 Mel Gibson movie, where they featured due to him seeing the smokestacks reflected in a mirror in the hospital bay that the CIA kept him in when he was receiving his MKUltra treatment.
John LuskAh, yes, the halcyon days when it was fun (and nothing more) to posit a conspiracy theorist who was actually right for once.
Little did we know how many people took that seriously.
@tarheel @mattblaze Also the halcyon days before mel gibson's racist ass imploded his career. (although we did already know he was a homophobic dick, but so was most of hollywood in the 90s)