Art Drop #19: Under the Crumbling Infrastructure
Can we liveblog the creation of an art drop? Yes we can.
We are liveblogging this month's art drop because why not? Let's start December off with a drive to somewhere we’ve had our eye on each time we cross the Hudson River on our way into Western Massachusetts – and you are all invited.
8.30am
Tom here. We just dropped our daughter off at school. Diana is driving. The temperature is 25 degrees Fahrenheit (-4 degrees Celsius).
8.42am
We're getting on the I-90 and heading west to Schodack Island State Park in New York. There's a dusting of snow across the landscape. 25 miles to our exit.
8.52am
Just crossed the border into New York and Diana saw a crow eating from a deer carcass. She observes that seeing the light snow that landed on a wooded hill or mountain is like seeing someone's scalp through their thinning hair. "Is that the kind of descriptive text you are looking for?" she asks. Absolutely.
8.57am
The sun is out this morning and the light is beautiful. There are some rich colors around; the simultaneous orange/yellow/red of bittersweet, the brick red of sumac, the pale purple haze of deciduous saplings and shrubs.
9.07am
We just passed a graveyard of old vehicles. Cars, school buses, trucks, you name it, all piled up on top of each other. I saved the location and will try to get access one day. It's called The Auto Undertakers. Great name.
9.15am
We are off the highway now and driving through South Schodack. Lots to see and photograph here; a poly tunnel in disrepair, buffalo on a farm, snow geese flying overhead. The light has gone now, cloud has covered the sky, but that might be better for our photographs today.
9:45am
Diana is taking over the liveblogging now via voice memo. We are now driving through the Schodack Island State Park. There are docks pulled out of the Hudson River, campsites winterized with their picnic tables stacked up and sheltered. We park the car and make our way on foot towards the high-tension wires, the railway bridge and the auto bridge, each towering across this part of the Hudson. On our approach to the bridges on foot we see a train coming from the east. A sign below says WARNING RISK OF FALLING DEBRIS and we hang back. Something falls from the bridge closer to the river, maybe ice.
10:09am
The sun is breaking out from the clouds illuminating the goldenrod seed heads underneath the highway. The concrete above us is broken up into almost mosaics – little squares within squares within squares. There is crazing and patches and some of the concrete is stained rust from the metal within. The rumbles come back and forth overhead with each passing truck. Tom patiently waits for the light and when it breaks through he grabs what he can, knowing it's going to disappear any second.
10:29am
We're under the railway bridge now, two-tone brown paint like the light and dark brown M&M's of yore. There is steel on top of concrete on top of older crumbling concrete. Everything is held together almost like a house of cards. Steel radiating from spokes (Tom describes them as looking like palmetto fronds), X's, ladder shapes, barbed wire shapes, zigzags, rivets, fallen debris around us.
10:32am
As we approach Schodack Creek the plant life abruptly changes from goldenrod to cattails, phragmites – very tall phragmites actually. Everything is tall here. I see seed pods of Queen Anne's Lace and can hear cardinals, Carolina wrens, American tree sparrows, house finches.
10:35am
We've reached the creek. There are gentle ripples in the water and snowy, sandy banks. The phragmites and cattails are almost bleached out by winter, matching the tones in the concrete. Tom is going under the bridge looking for a way through to the creek's edge.
10:42am
I want a hot chocolate. Tom wants a coffee. Hands are really cold.
11:03am
Tom says, “If you look at every pier of the bridge it has these sort of haphazard ladders, and if you frame it reasonably tight it reminds me of a snakes and ladders board. And I really like those steel fronds – they even have the tiny barbs that the palmetto fronds have. I’m pretty sure one of those shots will be the art drop. You know, just very minimalist, graphic, structural, bridge details that are interesting to look at and a little bit hard to make sense of visually. We'll see how they come out.”
11.43am
Tom here, awkwardly typing on the laptop in a moving vehicle. We're leaving the state park and the sun is back out, the light is amazing and everything looks better now. Of course it does. Diana just spotted a bald eagle nest in the trees above the road.
12.04pm
Driving back towards the highway and the road is undulating. As we head downhill towards a bend the light hits a corn field below us, framed by the backlit silhouettes of bare trees in the foreground. CWS (Car Window Syndrome).
12.11pm
We're back on I-90 heading east. Home in 22 minutes for lunch and the coffee I didn't have time for this morning.
Art Drop #19
Structural bridge details were definitely not what I was expecting to be drawn to today – I was assuming the creek and the reed beds and winter marshland colors would be my focus – but I’m surprised and really happy with this photograph. I like its arresting shapes, its bold graphic elements, and how those ladders make you question not only their purpose but what you are actually looking at.
Structural Steel, 1924
Schodack Landing, NY, USA
by Tom Bland
Prints of this photograph are only available through December 10, 2024, with no further production of this work for at least a year. To learn more about the paper, sizes, and pricing click the button below to visit the art drop page on our website.
Thank you for reading. Until the next time...
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I like this approach. The timeline. The play by play commentary. It shows how many photographers work. Letting our attention wander and remaining open to the ever changing possibilities of the moment. Preconceptions just get in the way. Better not to have them. Great choice for the Artdrop. I really like that shot of the field of goldenrod under the bridge too. And the two tone brown rivets at the base of the bridge. Probably a good close up shot there. While those look like ladders from afar, I don't see how they can be. The rungs are too far apart. Must be some sort of structural element.
Fun read and awesome images. That bridge looks like a great subject to photography!