Negative Space

 Going through some of the countless black and white negatives I have accumulated over the years, I have re-discovered some of the past.

    In the attic is a three-drawer filing cabinet. Inside are folders filled with photographs and negatives. The earliest I’ve dug up was from 1984, when I had taken a class at The Pittsburgh Film Makers. There are boxes full of slides and commercially developed pictures beside the cabinet.

    My notebook from the class was in one of the folders along with a brochure describing the course and what would be needed to take it. The class was Black and White Photography I. The notebook is filled with drawings and notes about composition, how film, colors and cameras work. Notes on developing film and printing it are in it also. Proof sheets and negatives from the assignments sit beside the notebook.

    My days of shooting pictures with black and white film was exciting. Many, many hours were spent in the darkroom developing the film and printing the pictures. Today’s modern digital cameras have made it so much easier for photographers.

    When you knew that you had only a certain amount of photographs on your roll of film, you tended to be a bit more careful in what you shot. It wouldn’t be until after the roll had been finished and then developed that you could see whether it was good or bad.

    In the early days, the majority of my shots were just plain bad. Blurry pictures due to low ISOs, slow shutter speeds and poor focus were problems I had to learn to overcome. It was a learning experience, but it was fun!

    Since my camera was usually with me I did a lot of early morning shots while on my way to work. Having the camera handy allowed me to try many new things. I still enjoy shooting pictures in dim light.

    In today’s world, if the light is low, I’m not confined to the type of film I am using. I only need to up the ISO a bit. The camera will also show me what I just took and I can instantly re-adjust my settings to get what I had envisioned. I don’t need to worry about how many shots I take, I can shoot until the battery wears out or the memory is filled. So being, I tend to take more shots than required. The camera also focuses itself, how can you beat that?

    The negatives I’ve been looking at are a small view of Pittsburgh’s history. Granted, it doesn’t go back very far, a mere 30 or so years but it does show a lot of the city that has changed.

    There are pictures of highways and buildings being built and the neighborhoods that were torn down to accommodate them. There are pictures of fires and floods, automobile and train accidents along with scenes of crowded streets and strangely quiet vistas in the early morning hours. There are shots of both the good and the bad of the city and surrounding areas.

    The best thing about it, they reinforce the fragile structures which support my memory. I find it humorous that I am able to recognize the places where photos were taken but I often have trouble remembering people’s names.

    These are just a few of the shots I took, a couple that I thought were interesting. They are from between 1984 and 1989. There are many more where these came from!

(Pictures will enlarge when clicked)

The Pittsburgh Arts Festival

Construction of the Pittsburgh Vista Hotel (now the Weston)

Beneath the streets during the subway construction

*Of Course, lots of trains*

The Hall Roundhouse near Monroeville

A Conrail train (gone) going past houses on rt. 28 (gone)

Another Conrail train along Alleghany River Blvd.

The Nickel Plate 765, during an excursion into the city

Cabooses waiting to be scrapped in Sharpsburg

Gone

A train accident

A car accident

I wonder if the officer is writing a ticket for the owner of the “70 Olds”?

    And to end this group of shots, one of my favorite things I documented was the building of the Veterans Bridge and the widening of rt.28. Between Etna and the Northside there were lots of houses and a church or two taken down to accommodate the project.

    One of the interesting things that was uncovered during the building was a canal lock from the Pennsylvania Main Line canal. Being a bit of history, it was carefully dug up and removed to save it for future research. I believe portions of it are in the Heinz History Center. Being interested in archeology, I went down numerous times to photograph the excavation. 

The canal lock

The Heinz plant and smokestacks can be seen behind the early construction of the Veterans Bridge. The railroad bridge, on the right, was built first to allow train traffic through the site during building. The location of the canal is now underneath the highways.

I’m going back up to the attic, can’t wait to see what other pictures I find! I've also put some black and white film in one of my old cameras, I'm not done shooting yet!