If habitats are seen as the cells of life, everything else we build in the world that services and connect them must be seen as infrastructure. The range and variation boggles the mind, and so does the expertise required to design, build and maintain it. This gallery is the most eclectic and surprising of all.
Construction of Interstate 10 connector ramps at Beltway 8 in Houston includes a full range of highway construction tasks for the contractor, KBR, including demolition of existing connector ramps, construction of new ones, line striping, signage, guard rails and details, details, details on this 1.4 million project. Photo by Chad Mcghee.
Photographer: Joe Martinez Jr., Richter Studios, Chicago
Submitter: Erica McKnight, Walsh Group
Description: Photographer Jose Martinez took this photo of a $132-million automated people mover project in College Park, Ga. as part of documentation of work done nationwide by contractor The Walsh Group, Chicago. "I wanted to fill the frame with the tracks showing the subtle curve as they leave the frame; this would create movement in the photograph," he says. Martinez chose to await the moment when a plane overhead cut through the tracks in the frame. "This would indicate a sense of time," he adds. "When I saw a plane coming my way I was ready for it. I snapped the shutter just in time."
Photographer: Gerry Acevedo, Senior Inspector, Parsons Brinckerhoff Construction Services Inc.
Submitter: Neal Moritz, Graphic Designer, DMJM Aviation Partners
Description: Acevedo, who works for O’Hare Construction Manager, a joint venture led by Parsons Brinckerhoff doing modernization work at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, says what attracted him to this scene was one big piece of equipment hoisting another big piece of equipment, which you don’t often see. The program manager, a joint venture led by DMJM Aviation, sent the shot. It shows Workers for Walsh Construction in late August lower a Caterpillar 315 hydraulic excavator into a hole that will become a new pump station for a detention basin along the north airfield.
Photographer: Tim Souther, Project Manager, Wild Heavy Haul Inc.
Submitter: Tim Souther, Project Manager, Wild Heavy Haul Inc.
Description: Wild Heavy Haul transported about 150 steel ducts, each weighing 200,000 lbs, about 3/4 mile from laydown to the Duke Energy's Marshall Steam Station in Catawba County, N.C., last May. The 30-ft-tall, 13-ft-wide and 112-ft-long ducts will direct desulfurized flue gas from scrubbers to new smokestacks. Souther took this shot as one duct passed by carried on two 70-ft-long I-beams, four dollies and a heavy tractor. “You can walk faster,” he says. Capturing a move like this one also makes for a good brochure cover. "You can say, I can do it; it's proof," says Souther.
Photographer: Pedro Luis Silva, Mota-Engil - Engenharia e Construção, SA
Submitter: Pedro Luis Silva
Description: As a safety and health technician, Silva keeps an eye on work conditions, including those of these welders 400 meters into in a 12-m-dia., 3-km long water main under construction in Castanheira do Ribatejo, Portugal. "I was doing a routine checkup, like I do every day... being there with the guys and learning their problems," he says. "The fresh air from the vent is always welcome." He says he took the picture because it shows exactly how rough and hard construction can be, as well as the human—and sometimes super-human—effort it can require.
Photographer: Bob Wazniak, Safety Engineer, Wisconsin Dept. of Transportation
Submitter: Bob Wazniak
Description: Wazniak got up at 1:00 a.m., to get this shot of a tandem lift on the $810-million Marquette Interchange reconstruction in downtown Milwaukee. Two crawler cranes were hoisting a tub girder, a critical lift Wazniak wanted to see--after he took a look at safety conditions. "My first job is safety," he says, "Then I step back and take the pictures." Wazniak used a tripod to steady his point-and-shoot, digital camera during the half-second exposure. "I like night work because it isolates your subject," he says. "If you took the same picture in the daytime, it would not be as impressive." Wazniak, who has been shooting for more than 25 yeras, says he prefers a compact digital camera over a single-lens reflex because he can frame the shot on the rear viewscreen.
Photographer: Paul Knapick, BBL Construction Services, Albany, NY
Submitter: Paul Knapick
Description: While shooting workers welding cross bracing for a wall in a new dormitory building at Dominican College, Orangeburg, N.Y., Knapick was drawn to the sparks, which pierced through the darkness in a way he’d never seen before. “The trail of the light was so clear and so sharp,” he says. “It’s almost like a trail a lightning bug would leave if it could.”
Photographer: Mick Kotaro Miyake, Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction Co., San Francisco
Submitter: Mick Kotaro Miyake
Description: Miyake, project manager on construction of the $170-million Britannia East Grand Phase 2 biotechnology building project in South San Francisco, doesn't mince words in describing what moved him to take this photo. "This construction moment is one of the most beautiful scenes," he says. Miyake says he watches for dramatic lighting and will stake out vantages and wait until the light gets just right to capture such images. This photo was taken in early morning just after a heavy rain. "The silent and sacred moment is there before the day starts," Miyake says.
Photographer: John V. Robinson
Submitter: John V. Robinson
Description: John V. Robinson took this photo of the new $1-billion, 1.7-mile-long Benicia-Martinez Bridge in northern California in January 2007. Built by Kiewit Pacific Co., the cast-in-place segments form a five-lane, 82-ft-wide northbound crossing parallel to the existing truss bridge. "I was looking north across the Carquinez Strait at the traveling form system reaching south to close the gap between Pier 8 and Pier 7," he recalls. "Below, the crew boat moves past Pier 8."
Photographer: Mike Neyman, Senior bridge engineer, Louisiana Dept. of Transportation & Development
Submitter: Meghan Legaux, Louisiana TIMED Managers
Description: In this image, Louisiana state bridge inspector Mike Neyman captures two 1,200-ton diagonal struts that form the sides of a support being installed as part of the $989-million widening of the Huey P. Long Bridge in New Orleans. The project involves bulking up piers and adding 10 million lb. of structural steel to support the bridge superstructure, he says. "We try to take as many pictures as we can and document what they are doing," says Neyman. He says he never thought of himself as a photographer, but adds that his new position has sharpened his skills."I think my eye has improved since day one," Neyman says.
Photographer: Keith Philpott
Submitter: Chad Pulley, Black & Veatch Corp.
Description: Black & Veatch says the Long Tan dam in Tian, China, which came on line in April, is the world’s largest roller-compacted concrete dam and the fourth largest hydro station, with 3,600 MW. Philpott fitted his Nikon DX2 with UV filters “to cut through the typical gray day in China and pull out the blue.”
Photographer: Keith Philpott
Submitter: Chad Pulley, Black & Veatch Corp.
Description: Construction sites fascinate freelancer Keith Philpott, who travels the world, often shooting for Black & Veatch. The Long Tan hydropower plant in Tian, China, was a memorable shoot. "I was only there for a day and a half and I was exhausting myself, climbing all over the place, in some really tight spots," he said. Inside the tunnel, he saw workers carrying steaming 5-gal. buckets on sticks across their shoulders. "It was rice; they were on lunch break." For a photographer, jobsites are "like walking through hell. It's so easy to destroy your equipment." Philpott just replaced his Nikon D2X with a D3 model. List price: $4,999.95.
Photographer: Keith Philpott
Submitter: Chad Pulley, Black & Veatch Corp.
Description: Black & Veatch frequently contracts Keith Philpott, a Kansas City-based freelance photographer, to shoot the engineering and construction firm’s projects. “I look for people, light and composition,” he says. Two engineers confer behind a red subcritical pulverized coal boiler steam drum about to be installed by the Nebraska City Power Partners at OPPD's Nebraska City Station Unit No. 2. “I love the winter light in this shot,” says Philpott.
Photographer: Keith Philpott
Submitter: Chad Pulley, Black & Veatch Corp.
Description: Early in 2007, Black & Veatch sent photographer Keith Philpott to Zarqa, Jordan, to shoot Samra Electric Power Generating Co.’s new 304-MW thermal station just before it was commissioned. “I’ve seen a lot of powerplants,” says Philpott, “but I’d never seen a cooling fan that visible. They’re usually tucked out of sight.” An inspector in a cherrypicker satisfied Philpott’s desire to have a person in the frame, and the Arabic lettering on the boom “really helped advance the story by adding a sense of place,” he adds.
Photographer: Jon Colinares, Doka Canada Ltd.
Submitter: Daniel Cercon, Doka USA Ltd., Little Ferry, N.J.
Description: Colinares, was working as an account manager for formwork supplier Doka USA when he went to the top of one of seven access shafts of the $1.4-billion East Side Combined Sewerage Overflow tunnel project being built in Portland, Ore. He was looking for a record shot and possibly some advertising material for Doka. "Taking a picture from the very top you really capture the essence of what we were trying to accomplish, doing this final lining in a deep shaft with efficient and safe formwork," he says. This shaft is 115 ft deep and 67 ft in dia. The concrete lining is 3 ft thick.
Photographer: Bob Wazniak, Safety Engineer, Wisconsin Dept. of Transportation
Submitter: Marcus Weddle, Program Assistant, Buveck Consultants LLC, Milwaukee
Description: A trio of excavator operators tip over an Interstate bridge pier along the $810 million Marquette Interchange rebuild in downtown Milwaukee under the supervision of Marquette Constructors, a joint venture of Lunda Construction Co., Zenith Tech Inc. and Edward Kraemer & Sons Inc. Wazniak, says most pier demolitions only need two excavators. But he noticed that one subcontractor's operator (farthest from the camera) stopped his lunch to join in the fun. "They are always like a bunch of kids," he says. "They gather 'round, look for the big bang, and clean up what they knock over."
Photographer: Damian Conrad, Damian Conrad Photography, Portland, Ore.
Submitter: Damian Conrad
Description: Damian Conrad took this photo for the general contractor, a Portland, Ore. joint venture of Stacy and Witbeck and Kiewit Pacific, on the $143-million Downtown Mall Light Rail Extension project. "It was a warm summer evening in downtown Portland," Conrad says. "I turned and saw the two workers beginning to cut the rail and noticed the light rail stop and city lights in the background, which I thought illustrated the project well. The work involved cutting the existing rail very precisely, then installing a new rail cross which was then chemically welded to the existing line. "
Photographer: Steve Budman, Steve Budman Photography, Virginia Beach, Va.
Submitter: Guy Buzzoni, APM Terminals North America, Charlotte, N.C.
Description: To record the arrival of six 120-meter-tall ship-to-shore container cranes from China for APM's $450-million terminal expansion in Portsmouth, Va., Steve Budman shot hundreds of photos of the event in Chesapeake Bay. "The client paid for my photos but didn't offer to pay my speeding tickets," he says. He didn't get any luckily, even as he races to keep up with the ship, which didn't have to contend with 25 miles of stop-and-go traffic on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel crossing, as he did. "The birds were flying around [the ship] a lot," he says. In the photo submitted, "it's almost like the bird is showing the way, saying, 'Come on, ship!'"
Photographer: John V. Robinson
Submitter: John V. Robinson
Description: "I took this photo of a 450-ton deck section as it began its assent into place on the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge," says John V. Robinson. "I was perched on a stair tower that ran from the below the road deck of the old bridge to the pier cap." For the $849-million project, crews with Tacoma Narrows Constructors, a joint venture of Bechtel and Kiewit Pacific, lifted each road deck section from a transport ship onto a barge for positioning beneath the bridge. Then gantry cranes mounted on the main cables overhead lifted the deck section into place.
Photographer: Cohl Pope, Parsons Corp., Pasadena, Calif.
Submitter: Amber Thompson, Parsons
Description: Pope’s shot of Mike Criss, a Federal Aviation Administration engineer in the Merrill Pass of the Alaska Range, gets to the do-what-it-takes nature of infrastructure development. They were on a small crew building a tower with solar- and wind-powered cameras to feed weather condition shots via satellite to bush pilots planning flights. “It was just a work picture,” Pope says. “It’s a site you can only get to by helicopter. I noticed the helicopter was coming up in the background, Mike was on the tower so I snapped a couple pictures.”
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