Piero Bosio Web Site

It is, of course, utterly fitting that the mascot of ABC's parent company is a mouse, the rodent that symbolizes cowardice and timidity.

Gilligan's Island - hardly the first thing that comes to mind when talking about edgy social commentary - named the shipwrecked boat the "Minnow" as a direct dig at then-FCC chair Newton Minow. Minow had famously referred to TV programming as a "vast wasteland", and this was their way of thumbing their nose at him.

Someone needs to name something similarly small and feckless after (current FCC chair and comedy critic) Brendan Carr.

It would be disturbing enough if Kimmel's show had been pulled (at the FCC's behest, no less) for speaking ill of Charlie Kirk. But the monologue wasn't even about Kirk. It was about the hypocrisy and opportunism of those using Kirk's murder to advance a right-wing narrative.

Comedy can be a sharp weapon, but this was, frankly, hardly the stuff of Lenny Bruce.

We are living in very dangerous times.

@msherr I don't know of such a thing (maybe it exists, dunno), but if it *does* exist and isn't called "Reviewer #2", that's a major missed opportunity.

With a few exceptions (mostly towers atop downtown switching offices in populated areas), no one was trying to make any of this utilitarian communications infrastructure *beautiful*. It was form strictly following function, built to be reliable and rugged.

But there was, I think, quite a bit of beauty to find in it. I wonder if we'll look at our current neighborhood cellular towers, now often regarded as a visual blight, the same way decades after they're (inevitably) also gone.

The San Jose Oak Hill Tower is unique in a number of ways. This particular concrete brutalist design appears not to have been exactly replicated elsewhere; it was site-specific. It sits atop an underground switching center (that was partly used for a military contract), which explains the relatively hardened design.

Today the underground switch is still there, owned by AT&T, but the tower space is leased to land mobile and cellular providers. The old horn antennas at top are disconnected

For much of the 20th century, the backbone of the AT&T "Long Lines" long distance telephone network consisted primarily of terrestrial microwave links (rather than copper or fiber cables). Towers with distinctive KS-15676 "horn" antennas could be seen on hilltops and atop switching center buildings across the US; they were simply part of the American landscape.

Most of the relay towers were simple steel structures. This brutalist concrete platform in San Jose was, I believe, of a unique design.

Captured with the Rodenstock 50mm/4.0 HR Digaron-W lens (@ f/4.5) on a Cambo WRS-1600 camera (with about 15mm of vertical shift to preserve the geometry), the Phase One IQ4-150 back (@ ISO 50) in dual exposure mode (which preserves a couple stops of additional dynamic range into the shadows).

The tower's shape is irregular; it tapers slightly.

The wide angle and panoramic orientation give a bit of context, alone on a hill (which is being rapidly encroached by adjacent residential development).

AT&T Long Lines "Oak Hill" Tower, San Jose. CA. 2021.

All the pixels, none of the per-minute long distance charges, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/51261791084

#photography

Power plants are often regarded as utilitarian eyesores, and are rarely (generally under public pressure) built to look beautiful or interesting, (London's Battersea Power Station was an exception). Generally, like here, any beauty to be found is accidental, a direct consequence of interesting form happening to follow from function.

I shot several versions of this, with exposures that kept the moving train sharp or blurred it to varying degrees. I think this was the most successful attempt, with the train blurred enough to suggest motion, but not so much that it's unrecognizable.

Motion can be a central part of a still photograph.

This was captured with the Rodenstock 70mm/5.6 HR Digaron-W lens and the Phase One IQ3-100 back. A bit of vertical shift was used to keep everything straight. A 1/2 sec exposure provided just the right amount of motion blur for the passing train.

The power plant generates electricity (now oil fired, converted from coal) as well as steam for Philly's Center City steam loop. The rail bridge extends the former Pennsylvania Railroad's "High Line" into south Philly's Greenwich rail yard.

Schuylkill Co-Generation Plant and Arsenal Bridge, Philadelphia, PA, 2018.

All the pixels, none of the electricity, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/42660696454

#photography