Category: construction

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Big River, Big Crane

Yesterday's construction site, but with a panoramic view of the Mississippi.

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Little Diggin' Around on the Mississippi

Seen from the top of the 10th Ave Bridge, this crew seems to be rebuilding the storm drains to the river, but I'm not exactly sure. I'll need an engineer to be sure.

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There Goes the Neighborhood

2915 Knox Avenue South falls to the hammer of progress. It seems that the ban on new developments in Uptown has ended. This house is on the left-most edge of the property shown below: This promotional sign was on the side of the second house they demolished Tuesday. They are removing all five houses that are there now. I'll keep you up to speed as the development progresses. I snapped up pics of all the houses, since they will be gone by the end of the week and I know I'll be scratching my head in a year wondering what used to be there.

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Lake of the Isles Bridge Repair

Renovations around Lake of the Isles continue, the two bridges have been resurfaced with concrete. Once all the grounds work is done they will finally resurface the roads. I corrected the color in this image to emphasize the gold in the trees. Drawing down the color of the stopsigns and barricades evened out the image, before that, the eye couldn't let go of them to see the trees. Color work is much like working out the compositions in a painting, you have to decide where you want the eye to go and adjust accordingly.

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Twins Stadium Construction

The new Twins Stadium construction OVER I-394. Yep, this whole thing spans over the interstate, railroad tracks, a bike trail and probably the new light rail tracks. This whole area is a snaggle of bridges and parking lots. The location is obvious when you look at an areal view, but from the ground it's a terrifying location to build anything on. Oh yeah, the basketball stadium is across the street and on the opposite side is the recycling & incineration plant. I took this photo from the middle of an overpass with no sidewalk.

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Bridge Workers

Ever get the feeling someone's watching you? This construction worker at the 35W St. Anthony Bridge construction site takes a moment to check out the crowds watching him. I have a hard time typing when someone is watching me, I can't imagine working with power tools in the wind 150 feet over the Mississippi River. What a job! Look at all the cool gear these guys have. Just to the left of the red thing in the bottom left is a patch of gray — that's the bridge, everything else scaffolding and gear. Look at all this guy is wearing: a harness, knee pads, gobs of safety gear and a huge tool belt (check out the hammer). For those of us who earn their salt slingin' bits, a real job like this is pretty impressive.

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Shooting Bridges with Matt

So how did I get those pictures of the 35W replacement bridge construction? Was I flying over the Mississippi River? Nope, there's another bridge right next to it. The city was wise enough to create a pedestrian lane on that bridge to allow gawkers like me and my friend Matt, also known as Ravsitar, the release pixie of Tips From the Top Floor Photography Podcast. Yes, that's fellow Nikonian Matt taking a shot with a Nikon 70-300mm VR — looks good on him eh? Let's all encourage this newly-minted professional engineer to reward himself with one of his own, or at least a lens I want that I can use when he's got mine. If you are interested in learning more about the bridge, I found a Minnesota DOT information sheet online.

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St. Anthony Bridge Assembly

Here's what the St. Anthony Bridge segments look like before they install them. Note the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in the background (home of the Minnesota Twins & Vikings) behind the Valspar paint company. How would you move something this big & heavy half a mile? Check it out... Look closely, a segment is actually hanging from the Shuttle lift. Speaking of looking closely... Here's a 500mm telephoto of the side of the segments, you can see how they interlock.

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Bridge Construction Workers

He takes a moment to rest and enjoy the view. What's he working on? Behold the business end of the St. Anthony Bridge construction. What's the view like? You tell me. Is that the coolest job or what? Technical note, remember the 500mm mirror lens I was playing with? The first two photos were taken with it's replacement, the Tamron 200-500mm f5/6.3. It's an ungodly monstrosity to work with, but I'm very happy with the images! I still have a guilty desire to go buy back the mirror lens though. In spite of the wacky bokeh, the images were really clear & the lens was light. There are some really cheap ones out there, maybe...

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Crane, Cones & Claustrophobia

Cranes are great photo subjects, not only do you get a good vertical, but they are usually very colorful. This one serves as the focal point and since it was hemmed in by the barricades, I thought a nice claustrophobic composition would help, so I cut off the horizon and kept the framing close. I'm impressed that they managed to carve out a worksite in the middle of the street like this. The little orange cones add some dynamism as well, they are like little soldiers standing guard around the crane. The thin ones are scouts and the big ones are the bodyguards.