Part 29.12
A fragment of a mechanical lever locking machine that was removed from service a few years ago after a small fire in the tower. I like the geometry of this piece and its ability to blow my mind in the complexity of engineering that went into designing, fabricating, and installing the machine of which this small but important piece was part.
The purpose of the lever machine was to enable a tower operator to line switches and request signals for trains safely. This machine mechanically checked to ensure that a train was not already going over the switch, another train would be on a collision course, the track was not broken, and that the switches were all properly lined before a signal better than red was given to the train.
Setup: lighting was done with two work lamps. Nikon D80 mounted on a tripod. Subject was placed on a bed of broken car window glass (I have a bucket of it for such occasions). Image was tweaked in Photoshop by adjusting contrast, inverting colors, converting to monochrome, tinted for cyanotype appearance, and cropped.
Part 29.12
A fragment of a mechanical lever locking machine that was removed from service a few years ago after a small fire in the tower. I like the geometry of this piece and its ability to blow my mind in the complexity of engineering that went into designing, fabricating, and installing the machine of which this small but important piece was part.
The purpose of the lever machine was to enable a tower operator to line switches and request signals for trains safely. This machine mechanically checked to ensure that a train was not already going over the switch, another train would be on a collision course, the track was not broken, and that the switches were all properly lined before a signal better than red was given to the train.
Setup: lighting was done with two work lamps. Nikon D80 mounted on a tripod. Subject was placed on a bed of broken car window glass (I have a bucket of it for such occasions). Image was tweaked in Photoshop by adjusting contrast, inverting colors, converting to monochrome, tinted for cyanotype appearance, and cropped.