So the lens says, though the camera says “Sony.” Father Pitt happened to be in Beechview today, so here is a typical Beechview streetscape as seen by an old Soviet “Индустар” (“Industar”) lens, a copy of the Zeiss Tessar, mounted on a Sony Alpha 3000 camera.
Coffey Way in downtown Pittsburgh. This is not only the best picture of the year, but possibly the best one old Pa Pitt has ever published. He took a number of photographs from more or less this same angle, but when the barely visible figures in dark clothing wandered into the frame, he knew this would be the one.
If old Pa Pitt were at all concerned about his reputation as an artist, he would publish about one picture a week, if that many. Art is not his primary purpose here, however. His aim is to document the treasures that surround us, and he is willing to accept second-rate pictures if they show the object reasonably well. Sometimes, however, he does try to aim a little higher than that. These are some of his favorite pictures from the past year, not because of what they depict, but purely as photographic compositions.
The Childes-Callery-Casey-Falk House, now the Chancellor’s Residence for the University of Pittsburgh. It was designed by Peabody & Stearns and built in 1897. This was a perfect late-fall day, and in spite of the temptation to turn up the saturation to bring out the colors of the leaves, the picture seemed to work best when it was a little less colorful and just slightly melancholy.
St. Peter’s Church on the North Side. For this picture, Father Pitt actually hauled a tripod down to the North Side. He does not usually put that much effort into anything, so this one gets on the list just because it was extra work.
Dandelion seeds.
The onion domes on Holy Virgin Russian Orthodox Church in Carnegie, lightly dusted with snow. It took a fair amount of fiddling to get the domes and the crosses and the subtle clouds behind them all at the right shades.
The entrance to the Kinder Building in Allegheny West. At night the Beaux-Arts architecture takes on just the right air of mystery; we expect to see Humphrey Bogart emerge and be accosted by a shadowy figure in a trench coat.
Fall in the Union Dale Cemetery.
Bridges on the Monongahela. Taken from the south shore, this picture seems to tell the story of an urbanized river.
Myosotis laxa, the Lesser Forget-Me-Not.
Urn with resting fawn, Allegheny Cemetery.
The Peoples Building, McKeesport. Sometimes Father Pitt must admit that the weather has more to do with making a good picture than the skill of the photographer. In this case, he can take some credit for using a red filter to bring out the contrast between sky and clouds, but otherwise it was just a perfect day.
Penstemon digitalis, the Foxglove Beardtongue. This is a good picture of a flower taken under unfavorable conditions: bright sunlight wipes out details and makes it hard to get good botanical pictures. One solution is the one adopted in this picture, which is to have the sun shining through rather than on the flowers.
The entrance to St. Francis Xavier Church in Brighton Heights, designed by William P. Hutchins. This picture is made from a stack of three photographs at different exposures.
The Trimont (designed by Lou Astorino), seen in silhouette. It is not old Pa Pitt’s favorite building in the city, but certain views have dramatic photographic possibilities.
A very patriotic streetcar picture from Beechview.
Winter branches against sunset clouds.
What’s at the end of the rainbow? A streetcar, of course.
Throughout the year 2022, old Pa Pitt managed to put up at least one new article every day. To celebrate the changing of the years, here are twelve of his favorite pictures from last year, one for each month:
A vase of witch hazel.
Church of the Ascension, Shadyside.
Crocuses in the rain.
Fox squirrel.
Interior of Heinz Chapel.
Mammatus clouds at sunset.
Spotted Lanternfly nymph.
Retreating storm clouds behind the spire of Third Presbyterian Church, Shadyside.
Atlas on the Kaufmann’s Clock.
Chimney pots on the South Side.
The skyline of downtown with November leaves.
The colossal columns of the Mellon Institute illuminated from within at twilight.
It was not really a black-and-white camera; it was old Pa Pitt’s nineteen-year-old Samsung Digimax V4, a strange beast that was made for photography enthusiasts who wanted something that would fit in the pocket but still had most of the options of a sophisticated enthusiast’s camera. Father Pitt has set the user options to black-and-white. There is no good reason for doing so: obviously the camera collects color data and throws the colors away, and the colors could just as well be thrown away in software after returning from the expedition. But knowing that the picture must be black and white forces one to think in terms of forms rather than colors. So here are half a dozen pictures from a walk through the South Side Flats.
Since these two sites see nearly as many visits as Father Pitt’s main site here, they deserve their own domain names. They have therefore moved to a snappy new server and been given a complete redesign—with, of course, a black-and-gold site logo for each to make sure you know where you are. The old addresses will continue to work indefinitely, but new content will appear at these new domains:
https://pittsburghcemeteries.com/
https://florapittsburghensis.com/
The new server will allow us to offer some features not available before—notably an alphabetical index for each site.
It was already called the “Mellon Arena” by this time, which old Pa Pitt always thought was a perfect parable of what was happening to American public life at the end of the twentieth century: what was built by the people, and named for the people, was handed over to a big corporation. Most Pittsburghers don’t remember that this was actually built as the Civic Auditorium, a new home for the Civic Light Opera. Sports were secondary in the original plans.
The Civic Arena was never beautiful in Father Pitt’s eyes, but it was impressive. The huge retractable dome—the world’s first—looked like an alien spacecraft that had landed on the Lower Hill, demolishing all the houses and business and so forth, as alien spacecraft tend to do when they land, because apparently space aliens are jerks.
Huge retractable domes turn out to be a nightmare to maintain, and the dome stopped retracting several years before the Arena was abandoned.
Father Pitt will now take a moment to praise the little camera that took these pictures in May of 2000. It was a Smena 8M from the legendary Soviet Lomo camera works, a cheap plastic box with a very good lens. There was nothing automatic about it; it had manual adjustments for shutter speed, aperture, and focus, and countless great Russian photographers learned the basics on cheap but capable cameras like these. Father Pitt was not a great fan of the Soviet Union, but he has always had a soft spot for Soviet cameras.
Father Pitt does not normally indulge in what they call “street photography,” but back in March of 2000 this scene seemed to invite a picture, and Pa Pitt’s faithful Argus C3 was in his hand.
Just think of all the things you will have to explain to your children or grandchildren (if available) about this picture. You will have to explain who Lyndon Larouche was, and that conspiracy theories like his were not part of mainstream American politics in those days. You will have to explain that this man is hawking things called newspapers, which were sort of like long-form Twitter. You will have to explain that those things on steel posts (the nearest one has been decapitated, which you will try to avoid explaining) were individualized parking kiosks, one for each parked car, which sounds like such a brilliant idea that it must be about time for a revival. You may even, if you are feeling brave, end up explaining the idea of creating photographs with light-sensitive chemicals.
A dwarf skyscraper with the regulation base-shaft-cap formula, this elegantly simple commercial building was designed by Joseph F. Kuntz and finished in 1907. It used to be known as the Graphic Arts Building before it was turned into luxury apartments. Soon every building downtown will be luxury apartments, and all the commercial offices will have to move to the suburbs.
Charles Bickel designed this small skyscraper at First Avenue and Wood Street, which was finished in 1907. It’s a perfect demonstration of the base-shaft-cap form of an early skyscraper. In fact we can use this building as a textbook in our short course on how to read a Beaux-Arts skyscraper. The two-storey base contains the public aspects of the building—retail stores, public offices, and so on. The shaft is the main body of the building, a repeated pattern of windows and wall. The cap gives the building a presentable top, since a gentleman would not appear outdoors without his hat. Note also the floor just above the base outlined with a prominent border. That is the bosses’ floor, where the managers and other important people have their offices. “Form follows function,” as Louis Sullivan said; and in this case the form gives concrete shape to a social reality. You have now completed our course, and may award yourself a certificate.
A cell-phone camera has a very small lens. This can be a liability, but in some cases it can be an advantage. For example, the lens on a cheap phone is small enough to take pictures through a jeweler’s loupe. Above, flowers of Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica), with the edge of the loupe left in the picture as a kind of visual statement of the theme of this article. Actually, it’s easy to put the lens right in the middle of the loupe and not see the edges at all. Here are some of the other things you can see with a loupe and a cheap little cell-phone camera:
Lichen growing on a twig.
Moss on a log.
Chickweed (Stellaria media). For comparison, here is a fairly close photograph of the entire plant without the jeweler’s loupe:
