2014 Images of the Year
ENR's annual photo contest gives recognition to construction photography, the crews, and the projects they work on together. They also shows appreciation for the people who often face uncomfortable conditions capture great images.
East Side Access Project
East Side Access Project
Photographer: Rehema TrimiewTaking pictures on MTA’s $10.1-billion East Side Access project, Trimiew says she was struck by the “kind of weird, surreal environment” in a tunnel. The project official pictured “looks like he’s walking off into an unknown yellow wonderland,” she says.
Buffalo Bills Football stadium upgrade
Buffalo Bills Football stadium upgrade
Photographer: Dylan Buyskes
Submitter: Sarah Schuller, LPCiminelli
Description: Union ironworkers Paul Wild, Jennifer Van Pelt and Scott Schmitt (from left) obliged photog Dylan Buyskes, who climbed from an adjacent roof to shoot the crew installing scoreboards for the project by contractor LPCiminelli. “It’s a good feeling when you can see a finished project and know what it took to accomplish it,” says Van Pelt, a state-certified welder.
Second Ave. Subway Tunnel Bore, New York City, USA
Second Ave. Subway Tunnel Bore, New York City, USA
Photographer: Patrick J. Cashin
Description: Photographer Patrick Cashin stopped to wait for workmen to move a cherry picker into place, as he walked through the future Second Avenue subway tunnels beneath Manhattan’s Upper East Side. “I noticed the gap between the station and track tunnel leading to 96th Street was open to the outside, letting in daylight,” he says. “I changed my camera’s white balance to tungsten, which makes the daylight turn blue.”
Zoo interchange project
Zoo interchange project
Photographer: Trevor Clancy
Submitter: David Murphy, Marble Street Studio, Inc.
Description: “Heading onto the jobsite, I paused to take advantage of the beautiful backlighting and golden hue of the construction site just after dawn,” says Clancy, who took this shot last October, when HNTB hired his firm to take pictures of Wisconsin Dept. of Transportation’s Zoo Interchange Project. “I had hoped to get some nice backlighting in the image, and this was one of the first shots I took before the sun got too high for a silhouette,” Clancy says. “There were a few that we were going to submit, but this one was our favorite. I loved the way the worker in the foreground is contrasted against the monochromatic background.”
Cutter and Ziskind Houses Renovation
Cutter and Ziskind Houses Renovation
Photographer: Robert Umenhofer
Submitter: Consigli Construction
Description: Among his jobs at Consigli, Umenhofer documents project progress. Preparing to shoot a concrete pour at a Smith College residential-hall renovation, he climbed onto an adjacent roof in search of an interesting vantage point. “After getting harnessed, I laid on my stomach, leaned over and saw the perfect contrast of rough soil and newly troweled concrete,” he says. “The worker’s red hat and bright shirt added a punch of color.”
Istanbul Metro Project
Istanbul Metro Project
Photographer: Batuhan Nazar Salihoglu
Description: Plodding through the $660-million Üsküdar-Ümraniye-Çekmeköy Metro tunnel project beneath Istanbul, Batuhan Nazar Salihoglu, a technical reporter for Dogus Group, Istanbul, slipped in the mud just before he took this picture. He says all he was thinking about were camera settings and the frame. “Only photo, only scene, only camera settings—and the position of the machines.” Intent on capturing the perfect frame, Salihoglu says he fell down in a heap. Luckily, he wasn’t hurt, and he got the photo.
Legacy Way Tunnel Project
Legacy Way Tunnel Project
Photographer: Steve Ryan
Description: Since the project began in 2011, professional photographer Steve Ryan has been documenting the progress on the 4.6-kilometer Legacy Way tunnel, which will connect the western and northern suburbs of Brisbane. He caught this image after a downpour created an interesting reflection in a ventilation tunnel. Ryan says it required some patience to capture a smooth reflection with just enough light coming down the shaft. “It was a very peaceful shot, considering construction was still going on behind us,” he says.
American Municipal Powerââ¬â¢s Smithland Hydro Project
American Municipal Power’s Smithland Hydro Project
Photographer: Mark Brocker
Description: At the end of his day on the Smithland hydro project, Mark Brocker, a civil inspector with MWH Global and an aspiring shutterbug, decided to photograph workers before he headed home. Brocker’s eye was drawn to union carpenter Tom Willoughby, who was completing connections between bright-orange concrete forms for an upcoming wall pour. Later, Brocker desaturated the image before bringing Willoughby back in color, highlighting the work of the veteran tradesman
East Side Access Project
East Side Access Project
Photographer: Rehema Trimiew
Submitter: MTA Capital Construction
Description: Trimiew was on a routine photo shoot, documenting workers on MTA’s $10.1-billion East Side Access project, connecting Long Island Railroad to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. But when she looked at the images of workers filling rebar, she was “shocked. It looks like I’m in the floor, looking up at them.” She says there was a retaining wall separating her from the workers, enabling her to capture the photo from an unusual angle.
Anaheim Regional Intermodal Center
Anaheim Regional Intermodal Center
Photographer: Pearl F. Mclin
Submitter: Mala Hampson, HOK
Description: McLin, an architect with HOK, took this spontaneous shot of workers on the roof of the new intermodal center. “My coworker, Hector Ayala, and I walk the site on a weekly basis. We were always amazed at how fearless the construction workers are, and it so happened that they were about to rappel down from the diagrid structure at that moment.”
Equipment Testing at One57
Equipment Testing at One57
Photographer: Chris Dardis
Description: Chris Dardis, a senior project manager for Lend Lease Construction, was standing on the catwalk of the window-washing crane atop the 1,005-ft-tall One57 hotel-condominium building when he captured this view of Manhattan’s iconic skyline, made even more dramatic by the two workers in the suspended scaffold. “I did not have too much time to set up because the rig was constantly moving during the testing” of the equipment, says Dardis, an amateur shutterbug who is especially intrigued by construction photography.
Rail-Line Tunnel Site
Rail-Line Tunnel Site
Photographer: Erik Mårtensson
Description: Mårtensson, staff photographer for Nordic Construction Corp., was struck by the pace of activity deep below a quiet part of mountainous Norway as workers prepared for a tunnel blast on the Swedish contracting giant’s 5-km rail-tunnel project, set for completion in 2016. “These kind of assignments are the ones I love, when I’m able to spend time on a site to just observe and document the work and not have to stage anything,” he says. Mårtensson says the very low light conditions “really put pressure on the cameras when it came to high ISO performance.”
Blue Plains Wastewater Treatment Plant
Blue Plains Wastewater Treatment Plant
Photographer: Helmuth Humphrey
Submitter: Crystal DelleChiaie, PC Construction Co.
Description: As part of DC Water’s $470-million biosolids management program, contractors installed the first thermal hydrolysis system of its kind in the U.S. The efficient system, which breaks down sludge to produce biogas and a fertilizer product, enables utilities to reduce the number of digesters required. For this shot, veteran photographer Humphrey was seeking to convey the project’s size when he saw this pipefitter “in the right place at the right time.” Adds Humphrey, “The human element provides life, activity and, most importantly, a sense of scale.”
7-Line Subway Extension
7-Line Subway Extension
Photographer: Patrick Cashin
Description: While walking under the streets of Manhattan from 34th Street up to Times Square at 42nd Street, photographer Patrick Cashin encountered this worker installing new signal connections along the new tracks of the No. 7 subway-line extension. “I started by photographing him over his shoulder while he worked but didn’t like that I couldn’t see his face,” says Cashin. “When I moved around to the other side of the signal box, I saw an opening.” The worker continued the installation as Cashin found the perfect frame.
Maxwell Family Field and Parking Garage
Maxwell Family Field and Parking Garage
Photographer: George Baker
Submitter: Submitted by Golden State Photographic
Description: Descending a ladder after shooting the concrete placement at a campus parking structure, photographer George Baker looked up as workers with contractor Build Group waited for a load of concrete. “The sun was glaring down, creating a silhouette as they looked down,” Baker says. “The silhouette transmits their body language and posture, depicting a relaxed and self-confident feeling.”
Hilton Garden Inn
Hilton Garden Inn
Photographer: Robert Umenhofer
Submitter: Consigli Construction Co.
Description: Arriving early one afternoon to shoot a site visit by a nearby neighborhood youth group, the lensman received a flash of inspiration from a welder’s torch. “I framed the shot while the welder was changing rods, closed my eyes, waited for the crack of electricity and fired,” he says.
Gilboa Dam Reconstruction Project
Gilboa Dam Reconstruction Project
Photographer: Alan Kazin
Description: While climbing a scaffold stairway on New York City Dept. of Environmental Protection’s $138-million Gilboa Dam reconstruction project, Alan Kazin, a shooter with Bernstein Associates Photographers, saw this scene. “The composition of the pipes, with the worker on the lift and the water behind, drew my attention immediately,” says Kazin, who stopped climbing and snapped the photo. He knew it was more than a typical progress shot. “I was so drawn to this image, I made an 11- by 14-in. print, framed it and hung it in my office,” he says.
Silverrock canal
Silverrock canal
Photographer: Robert Keeran
Description: As the Coachella Valley Water District’s multimedia specialist, Robert Keeran, regularly photographs projects such as this Skanska job to restore flow capacity to the La Quinta section of the Coachella Canal, which draws water from the Colorado River. Because of extreme summer heat, concrete placement takes place at night until early morning. “The time between when you need artificial light to work in the desert’s darkness and the sunrise is a real magic time for photography,” he says.
Trump International Hotel & Tower
Trump International Hotel & Tower
Photographer: Jeremy Takada Balden
Submitter: Submitted by Morrison Hershfield
Description: In preparing to conduct water-penetration testing on the glazed curtain wall from atop the 39th floor, Jeremy Takada Balden, building-envelope consultant at Morrison Hershfield, used his GoPro to snap a picture over his colleague’s shoulder. “The actual view over the edge of the building was just as dizzying as it looks in the photo,” adds Takada Balden.
Carteret General Hospital Specialty Pavilion
Carteret General Hospital Specialty Pavilion
Photographer: Joshua Lyle
Submitter: Submitted by Lisa Perkins, Rodgers Builders Inc.
Description: As Joshua Lyle, senior project manager for Rodgers, walked the hospital addition site, he says, “I saw the colors reflecting off the freshly placed concrete, pulled out my phone and took the photo.” He used an iPhone 5S to capture the image. “It appeared as though I was looking across a calm lake.”
Indigo Project
Indigo Project
Photographer: George Baker
Submitter: Submitted by Golden State Photographic
Description: Working from a vantage point atop a tower crane, the photographer used a telephoto lens to shoot work on a residential project by subcontractor Pacific Structures. The 30-ft-tall rebar columns towering above the mat foundation reminded Baker of the state’s giant sequoia trees—how, “in the late morning, they were throwing these cool shadows.” Baker says he strives to find ways to establish a visual identity for each jobsite he visits, adding cultural or historical references when appropriate.
Lafayette Bridge
Lafayette Bridge
Photographer: Peder Thompson
Description: Thompson, an independent photographer shooting for Lunda Construction Co., found this row of pilings that had been set over the course of a month, with the older piles developing a patina as they weathered. “I used to work construction, and I like everything about construction photography,” Thompson says. “I like the outdoor aspect and all the elements that come together—the hard edges, the soft edges of the human beings, the scale of the equipment and the great technology—and that, in the end, it takes the hands of a person to put it all together.”
REbar Cage Weld on Park South Mixed-Use Development
REbar Cage Weld on Park South Mixed-Use Development
Photographer: Paul Knapick
Description: Knapick, a veteran staff photographer for Albany-based project general contractor BBL Construction Services and a repeat ENR photo-contest winner, used the equivalent of a 600-mm telephoto lens to capture, safely, the drama of a subcontractor’s weld of rebar on the garage foundation. “With a shallow depth of field, the background and foreground were out of focus, so the viewer’s attention [is] on the torch and the sparks,” he points out.
Harry Tracy Water Treatment Plant
Harry Tracy Water Treatment Plant
Photographer: Robin Scheswohl
Description: Scheswohl says she was “thrilled” to get to photograph inside a new 11-million-gallon treated-water reservoir that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission put into service in December. It is part of a $4.6-billion program to repair, replace and seismically upgrade the system’s deteriorating infrastructure. Scheswohl, the commission’s photographer, says she found and framed her shot as workers were sealing and disinfecting in preparation for filling. Then, she waited patiently until one of them entered the beam of light.
Bay Bridge Demolition
Bay Bridge Demolition
Photographer: Sam Burbank
Submitter: Submitted by Inverse Square Films
Description: As the old Bay Bridge is systematically dismantled in San Francisco, documentarian Sam Burbank has been working with demolition contractor Silverado-CEC to capture the process. One day in April, he was on the eastern span, looking over a newly made 100-ft gap. “The main cut from that major cantilever span had been made about a week earlier,” he says. “I was standing on the very edge of the east side of the cut, looking west. It was a tremendous amount of bridge, just floating there in space.” Burbank says it’s crucial to catch such moments. The bridge is a lifeline of the Bay Area. I feel honored to document its final days.”
Sparrows Point Steel Mill
Sparrows Point Steel Mill
Photographer: Stephen SetteDucati
Submitter: Submitted by MCM Management Corp.
Description: An essential part of any demolition job is breaking down bulky items into manageable pieces. Here, an excavator operator drags a tundish—a giant tray that once contained molten steel—to a burning yard. “Anything that our shears can’t cut through, they burn with propane and liquid oxygen,” says the photographer, who, for more than two years, has been shooting the vast cleanup of a former steel mill in Sparrows Point, Md.
Water reclamation plant No.4
Water reclamation plant No.4
Photographer: Robert Keeren
Description: To take this shot of workers installing heavy rebar for the concrete walls of new headworks facilities at a Coachella Valley Water District water reclamation plant, the photographer found a vantage point just outside the construction area. “I liked the pattern of the rebar,” says Robert Keeren, who used his Nikon D800e to get the shot. The project, by W.M. Lyles Construction Co., will improve treatment efficiency by removing heavy inorganic materials prior to the activated sludge treatment process.
Istanbul Metro Project
Istanbul Metro Project
Photographer: Batuhan Nazar Salihoglu
Description: This photo has “only contrast,” notes Salihoglu, a technical reporter for Dogus Group, Istanbul, describing the shot he took under that city while inside the $660-million, 17-kilometer-long Üsküdar-Ümraniye-Çekmeköy Metro tunnel project. “I think the dark and the light had a very good harmony,” he says. When Salihoglu sees a shot on-site, he checks that the camera settings are correct and quickly takes four to five images. “It’s all timing, and it’s luck,” he adds. “And a little experience.”
Third Panama Canal Crossing
Third Panama Canal Crossing
Photographer: Edward Ortiz
Submitter: Submitted by Lina Cossich, Panama Canal Authority
Description: Ortiz, of the Panama Canal Authority, took this shot of a worker welding the iron bars that will reinforce the piles of a the new bridge at the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal. The double-plane, twin-pylon, cable-stayed bridge will have four lanes and stand 75 meters above sea level. “What inspired me was the extension of the structure and the position of the man working atop,” he says. “I used to work for a newspaper, so I developed a knack for spontaneity.
Altman Clinical & Translational Research Institute, UCSD
Altman Clinical & Translational Research Institute, UCSD
Photographer: Bruce Heimbach
Submitter: Submitted by Project Management Advisors Inc.
Description: On one of his site tours as assistant owner’s rep on UCSD’s ACTRI research lab, Bruce Heimbach, vice president at Project Management Advisors, snapped a shot of a worker installing formwork on one of the seven-story building’s stairwells. The building’s structural design is a mix of cast-in-place concrete and steel, requiring lots of coordination between subs. “I think when the structure is being erected is the most interesting time for a building to be a photographic subject,” says Heimbach. “I like to capture people doing something on the structure.”
10 Hudson Yards
10 Hudson Yards
Photographer: Timothy Schenck
Description: “I was a structural engineer for 13 years and began shooting while I was still an engineer,” says Schenck. As time went on, “I was having a lot more fun in the field shooting, instead of being in the office. I was seeing projects come to life.” He has now been a freelance photographer for four years. In this shot, he captured, silhouetted against the sky, an ironworker atop a column as he waits for formwork to be maneuvered into position by a tower crane. 10 Hudson Yards is the first of 16 skyscrapers that will form a 12-million-sq-ft mixed-use development.
Hoosic River Bridge
Hoosic River Bridge
Photographer: Dennis Lee
Description: Extra effort shows on the face of this ironworker as he helps guide the final girder into place on this bridge over the Hoosic River. Lee is a freelance photographer, who was shooting for Harrison and Burrowes Bridge Constructors Inc. Reflecting on his work, Lee says, “You get the human element of guys working but also the dramatic construction scenes.”
PNC Tower
PNC Tower
Photographer: Mark Beckett
Submitter: Submitted by Debi Taylor
Description: On his first job as a project manager for Century Steel Erectors, Beckett captured ironworkers erecting a truss some 437 ft above the street. The truss frames a view that includes Pittsburgh’s iconic PPG Place skyscraper, the river and beyond. Inspired in 1999 by a retiring ironworker’s visual record of his entire career, Beckett has taken, to date, approximately 10,000 photos of projects he has worked on across the U.S. He routinely sends photos to the union hall and to Century Steel’s main office for their use
St. Croix Crossing
St. Croix Crossing
Photographer: Peder Thompson
Description: Thompson was on his first day of shooting the Lunda-Ames JV building the St. Croix Crossing between Wisconsin and Minnesota when, near the end of the day, he glimpsed a worker in a forest of pilings. “The light was just delicious. I felt like I couldn’t go wrong—particularly when that guy looked up. That was the magic moment,” he says. The project has been decades in the making, in part because of historical, cultural and environmental features on the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway.
Panama Canal Expansion
Panama Canal Expansion
Photographer: Edward Ortiz
Submitter: Submitted by Lina Cossich
Description: Piled with precision, these steel bars will be used for the third set of locks in the $5.25- billion Panama Canal Expansion Program. The Panama Canal Authority’s Ortiz took the shot one summer morning during the rainy season. “This image caught my attention because of the colors of the steel bars. The color depends of the grade and size of the rebar,” he says.
South 200th Link Extension Project
South 200th Link Extension Project
Photographer: Francis Zera
Submitter: Submitted by Amanda Behner, PCL Civil Constructors
Description: Seattle’s South 200th Link Extension project comprises a $171-million station and 1.6 miles of double-track light-rail transit on an elevated guideway. “I’d scouted the location and planned the shot. The staging area offered the best vantage point for this hoisting operation,” says Francis Zera, president of Zera Photo, hired to document the launch of the gantry over the project’s first major road crossing. “I liked the combination of tension and motion, and the workers atop the column added scale to show just how large that beam is.”
Sparrows Point Steel Mill, Md.
Sparrows Point Steel Mill, Md.
Photographer: Stephen SetteDucati
Submitter: Submitted by MCM Management Corp.
Description: Photographing workers in their unvarnished glory can be difficult because they see the camera and start joking around self-consciously, says SetteDucati. For this shot, he got creative by not looking through the camera. Surreptitiously pointing and shooting from below, SetteDucati emphasized the weathered face of this 62-year-old master burner, who was about to retire at the end of the year.