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Implosion [6/9]
Implosion [6/9]
bvy


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Camera: Olympus C-70 / C-7000 Zoom
Location: Pittsbugh, PA
Date: Mar 22, 2008
Aperture: F/4
ISO: 80
Shutter: 1/200
Galleries: Urban, Photojournalism
Date Uploaded: Mar 22, 2008

Viewed: 305
Comments: 1
Favorites: 0

St. Francis Hospital, uptown Pittsburgh, was scheduled to be imploded early this morning to make way for the Pens' new arena. I wouldn't have made it then, but when I heard it was rescheduled for two o'clock (due to the "bad weather" -- the dusting of snow we got overnight), I decided to check it out.

I hadn't used my camera's burst feature before this afternoon, and in the car on the way there while my wife was driving probably wasn't the time or place to learn (I got dozens of yawn-inducing shots of the ride there). Still I felt I figured it out well enough to get some decent photos of this.

I decided that atop one of the parking garages at Duquesne University would offer a good view. I set up the tripod, set picture mode to HQ for faster processing, took a few sample shots, and then we all sat back and froze (I try to turn photo shoots into family outings where possible). Technically it's spring, but it was in the thirties today, snowing slightly, and a brisk wind was blowing. And guess in what direction -- toward us from the implosion site.

After about fifteen minutes of waiting, I decided to turn the monitor of my camera off for a few minutes to save the battery. No sooner did I do that than I heard the first bangs. I began to fumble to get set up again, and it's probably a good thing it happened that way. I forgot that a good five to ten seconds passes between the sound of the first explosion and the first sign of the structure starting to give. I would have gotten a burst of shots of nothing and then the building would have fallen while I was resetting.

So I got a good two-thirds of the implosion and then a burst of shots of the dust cloud that swallowed up the whole scene. We picked up and took off before the cloud arrived.

Not sure what I could have done differently or how I could have paced myself to capture more of the scene. I'm open to suggestions. In any case, here's what I captured:











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AuthorThread
03/23/2008 04:27:48 AM
Fantastic series of shots!
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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