2010 - Images Of The Year
ENR's Annual Photo Contest showcases memorable images from amateur photographers. These excellent photos offer a side of engineering that is not often seen.
Project Architect at Corgan Associates, Sacramento
Photographer: Alan Wong, project architect at Corgan Associates, Sacramento
Description: The cover photo by Alan Wong, project architect at Corgan Associates, Sacramento, shows “roof dunes” atop a new 350,000-sq-ft facility at the city’s airport. The building “responds” to nearby foothills and mountain ranges, says Brent Kelley, firm principal. “Once stainless steel with its battens was installed, the lines create a unique patterning, that while visible from the ground, would not have the same effect visually as it would from the top of the roof.”
David Homer
Photographer: David Homer
Description: David Homer joined the P&C Construction workers on the $7.5 million, CM/GC project for the Peoples Utility District in Clatskanie, Oregon before dawn but waited until the first rays of light dappled through the mists from the freshly poured concrete, while workers standing ankle-deep in the mix, continued screeding as fast as they could. “I wanted to capture movement, and a sense of what these guys do.”
Marc Barnes
Photographer: Marc Barnes
Description: Submitted while Barnes was with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; he now works for the hospital built on the site of the former Fort Belvoir, Va., Army base. Barnes climbed a platform above the innovative steel-framed atrium roof of a new federal building under way at the former Fort Belvoir base to trail installer Andreas Olson for this photo on a day when sky and sun cooperated. The roof panel system, unusual in the U.S., was used to construct the “Water Cube” at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York City
Photographer: Patrick J. Cashin, Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York City
Description: Cashin’s return this year as an ENR photo-contest winner attests to both his photographic prowess and the wealth of images in New York City subway construction. Here, two sandhogs wait for a tunnel-boring machine to break through a wall during work to extend the No. 7 line in Manhattan. “What caught my eye was the background,” he says. “The circles and the round helmets all make your eyes move right to the sandhogs’ faces.”
Marble street studio Inc. Albuquerque, N.M.
Photographer: Peter Arathoon, Marble street studio Inc. Albuquerque, N.M.
Submitter: John Yost, Marble Street Studio Inc.
Description: Arathoon was doing stop-motion photography to document the completion of the new Southwest Carpenters Union Training Center in Albuquerque when he got this shot of workers polishing the concrete-terrazzo floor.
People and Work Photography, San Francisco
Photographer: Joseph Blum, People and Work Photography, San Francisco
Description: Blum captured ironworkers taking cable from shackles used to lift 1,100-ton shafts for the new Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge suspension span’s 530-ft-tall tower. “I am interested in documenting the incredible skill and effort of the labor of the people that make the engineering feats possible,” he says.
Parsons Corp., Bakersfield, Calif.
Photographer: Gilbert Vega, Parsons Corp., Bakersfield, Calif.
Description: The worker is touching up the freshly paved surface of the Mohawk Street bridge over the BNSF tracks in Bakersfield, Calif., while crouching underneath a truss screed. “It was early morning when I took this, so I got good light. And the clouds look good also. I was lucky.”
Construction Webcam, Atlanta
Photographer: OxBlue, Construction Webcam, Atlanta
Submitter: Carlos Onufriuk, cost engineer and scheduler, Flatiron Construction Corp., New Roads, La.
Description: Onufriuk says he takes his own progress shots, but he spotted this photo in February among the 96 images captured daily by a jobsite cam. A light snow falling between the rising towers of the John James Audubon Bridge at St. Francisville, La., traces the ghostly catenary of the bridge to come. The deck made connection in the last week of December.
Hanna Group Oakland, Calif.
Photographer: Martin Chandrawinata, Hanna Group Oakland, Calif.
Description: Project Engineer Martin Chandrawinata captured crews preparing for their shift on the $6-billion Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge, which includes thousands of tons of temporary steel trusses to support the self-anchored suspension-span deck.
Shawmut Design and Construction, Boston
Photographer: Ben Johnson, Shawmut Design and Construction, Boston
Description: Johnson visited work at Boston’s 118-year-old St. Cecilia Parish church to shoot restored ceiling paintings that are part of its $11-million restoration and modernization, which is being managed by Shawmut. “But on the way up, I saw the [light through the] stained glass illuminating symmetrical, repeating patterns of the scaffolding and stopped to find a way to capture it,” he says. The first major systems upgrade of the 20,290-sq-ft church is set for completion in March.
Quality Engineer, Rasen Construction and Inv. Inc., Istanbul, Turkey
Photographer: Fatih Saglam, Quality Engineer, Rasen Construction and Inv. Inc., Istanbul, Turkey
Submitter: Gökhan Günes, Rasen Construction and Inv. Inc.
Description: “Mist is beautiful even if you are working in a hard position,” Saglam says. “It was a rare, shiny autumn day in Moscow. I saw this worker with mist around him cleaning the rebar under a great light of morning sun. It was the moment I was looking for.” Rasen is general contractor of Moscow’s Mercury City Tower, which is destined to become one of the tallest buildings in Europe.
Dwayne Easterling Jacobs Associates
Photographer: Dwayne Easterling Jacobs Associates, San Francisco
Description: Easterling, joint-venture contractor Parsons/Jacobs’ chief tunnel inspector on the South Cobb waste-water tunnel project near Atlanta, rode a crane-mounted work platform for a good vantage point to photograph an influent pump station’s 18th concrete lift. Easterling, a professional photographer before he took up construction, asked the crane operator “to move the bucket about six inches to line up the [lamppost] in the background.”
Andrew Stone Jacobs Associates
Photographer: Andrew Stone Jacobs Associates, San Francisco
Description: Andrew Stone, a senior engineer with Jacobs Associates, was working for another firm as the owners’ representative for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority on the Dulles Corridor Metrorail project in Virginia. During a lull in his regular night shift, he noticed he had a good view of both the inbound and outbound tunnels. To preserve the quality of the natural light, he used a tripod and no flash to take the photo. He says he is pleased with the result. “I wanted to capture all the elements,” he says.
Idaho Falls
Photographer: Ron Paarmann, Idaho Falls, Idaho
Submitter: Kelly Rhodes, Dept. of Energy, Idaho Falls
Description: “The image is so effective because of the red sparkcontainment barrier behind the worker,” says Paarmann. The diagonal lines and texture of the gloves added to the photographer’s interest. “I looked away as the cutting took place,” he says.
Matt McDonald
Photographer: Matt McDonald, Danny’s Construction Co. inc., Shakopee, Minn.
Submitter: Lynn Wert, Danny’s Construction Co.
Description: Project superintendent McDonald says he snapped this picture during a routine monthly flyover to get progress photos of a $70-million vertical lift-span installation for the Burlington Rail Bridge in Burlington, Iowa. He noticed the sun glimmering off the river and knew the shot would be great. The 2,500-ton span slid into place in late December 2010.
Scott Lewis, ACCO Engineered Systems
Photographer: Scott Lewis, ACCO Engineered Systems, Glendale, Calif.
Description: Corporate photographer Scott Lewis snapped this picture of workers refurbishing a centrifugal chiller for an HVAC system. They are in the process of pulling out the center piece to rebuild it. “In this market, more clients are refurbishing rather than replacing chillers, which can cost up to $100,000,” says Lewis.
Alissa Hollimon
Photographer: Alissa Hollimon, Hollimon Photography, San Antonio
Submitter: Jen Jonas, Zachry, San Antonio
Description: ”I was standing under some pipes taking photos of a Zachry boilermaker who was working on the spring turnaround at the Citgo refinery in Corpus Christi,” says Hollimon. Zachry has performed turnarounds at the refinery for more than 20 years. “When he turned, it made the perfect shot.”
Keith Philpott
Photographer: Keith Philpott, Keith Philpott Photography, Olathe, Kan.
Submitter: Amy Schmidt, HDR, Omaha, Neb.
Description: Philpott says he can empathize with the workers building the $240-million Hoover Dam Bypass in Boulder City, Nev. He says it was brutal just trying to find the right vantage point for a photo, never mind enduring the heat that made it almost impossible to drink enough water. “If they were unlucky enough to be in the 105º sun like the guy in the photo, then it was rough,” Philpott says.
Cyrus Creveling
Photographer: Cyrus Creveling, Fairfax, Va.
Description: “There was a good background, which helps,” says the part-time construction photographer and fulltime mailman who was a combat engineer in Vietnam. Waiting for a crane to make a pick, Creveling snapped workers rigging up a bridge beam at the Maryland Intercounty connector project. The green trees caught his eye—the rest of the jobsite was full of mud.
David Cox
Photographer: David Cox, DPR Construction, San Diego
Submitter: Connie Bathrick, Palomar Pomerado Health, Escondido, Calif.
Description: Cox, DPR superintendent of this $956-million acute-care hospital job, was intrigued by “the human element juxtaposed against the repetitious building pattern and the contrast in scale,” he says. The telephoto lens that he used “was nothing out of the ordinary.” The 800,000-sq-ft project, which will include a 1.5-acre green roof, is set to finish in spring 2012.
Brizz Meddings
Photographer: Brizz Meddings, Site Risk Manager, Andersen Construction, Corvallis, Ore.
Description: Meddings says his “hanging iron” shot was taken during structural-steel erection at Oregon State University’s Linus Pauling Science Center in Corvallis. Pictured, a seismic buckling restraint brace is being hoisted to ironworkers for connection. Meddings says he circled the perimeter of the project to find his angle and zoomed in “to isolate the action.”
Skip Pennington
Photographer: Skip Pennington, Brasfield & Gorrie, Birmingham, Ala.
Description: In a state that reveres college football and for a contractor employing many University of Alabama alumni, the $48-million expansion of Bryant-Denny Stadium, named for two campus legends, was highprofile, says Pennington. He shot progress photos even during football games. Work began in 2009 and was finished in time for the 2010 season.
Roger Loguarro
Photographer: Roger Loguarro, Bologna, Italy
Submitter: Angela Randolph, Salini Construttori SPA, Rome
Description: Salini Costruttori sent Loguarro to its project sites around the world with instructions to concentrate on the human capital of the company: “people, faces, many nationalities—their lives, their stories, their enthusiasm,” says Loguarro. He was scouting for the next day’s shoot at the 250-MW Bujagali Hydroelectric Power Project on the Victoria Nile near Jinja, Uganda, when he saw this irresistible crew.
Craig Laurie
Photographer: Craig Laurie, Job Captain, RB Architects, Los Angeles
Submitter: Jeanette Dvorak, RBB Architects, Los Angeles
Description: Part of the 100,000-sq-ft patient tower for the St. Joseph Health System, Orange County, Calif., the chapel’s footprint is only 450 sq ft. However, with light from the glass ceiling throwing into relief the cross against the chapel’s 30-ft back wall, Laurie’s shot captures a space that inspires its visitors to look up and contemplate.
Gilbert Vega
Photographer: Gilbert Vega, Engineer, Parsons Corp., Bakersfield, Calif.
Description: Vega, an engineer, used to work for a land development company before the real estate crash. In 2008, he joined Parsons, where he does a lot of shooting for progress presentations to clients. He explains, “Normally, I shot this bridge project from a nine-story building nearby. But this [particular] morning, they asked me to walk the whole corridor, so I got this close-up of this worker breaking up the steel piles of the bridge abutment.”
Cyrus Creveling
Photographer: Cyrus Creveling, Fairfax, Va.
Description: Mailman by day and moonlighting as a construction photog, 64-year-old Creveling says he was careful not to get tangled in this “rat’s nest of rebar.” The former laundry facility at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., torn down earlier this year to make way for new U.S. Coast Guard headquarters, may have doubled as a secret fallout shelter. “You don’t need that much rebar for washing machines,” Creveling jokes.
Matthew McFarland
Photographer: Matthew McFarland, St. Louis
Submitter: Tasha Turnbough, Clayco Inc., St. Louis
Description: At this conversion of the existing St. Louis Centre Mall into a retail space and parking garage, the photographer says he found “so many great perspectives walking around the guts of the old building.” He used a 70 to 200 mm zoom lens to keep a distance from the workers while looking for great backgrounds and lighting. McFarland “loves the contrast of the art deco building [and] the worker” driving the skid-steer loader.
Young-jae Lee
Photographer: Young-jae Lee, Hyundai Engineering Seoul, South Korea
Submitter: Yeji Kim, Hyundai Engineering, Seoul, South Korea
Description: Health and safety training commands the attention of construction workers before the day begins on the $232-million Dung Quat polypropylene plant in Vietnam. Hyundai is part of the engineer-procure-construct consortium for the facility in Quang Ngai province, one of Vietnam’s largest petrochemical projects.
Christopher Hartzler
Photographer: Christopher Hartzler, Balfour Beatty Construction, Fairfax, Va.
Submitter: Elizabeth Murray, Balfour Beatty Construction
Description: In the light of an autumn dawn, a worker begins building column forms for a new dormitory at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. “This business really lends itself to photography, but this shot was just good timing,” says photographer and senior project manager Hartzler. “There was good light, so it came out well.”
John Sturr
Photographer: John Sturr, FFKR Architects, Salt Lake City
Description: “One of my favorite [pictures]—not only because of the subject but because of how the image almost got away,” says Sturr. He was walking on Main Street near a Trax Station in Salt Lake City when he saw these workers waiting for a train on a Friday evening. Sturr says he thought it would be a good picture but decided it wasn’t right and walked on. But then he went back, asked permission and took one shot with a Nikon D3S and a 50 mm f1.4 lens in the late-day October light.
Brizz Meddings
Photographer: Brizz Meddings, Site Risk Manager, Andersen Construction, Corvallis, Ore.
Description: “‘Morning Workers’ was taken in the early stages of renovation at Oregon State University’s Nash Hall in Corvallis,” says Meddings. “The workers and early-morning light cast strong shadows across the pavement, and the resulting abstract quality intrigued me.”
Marc Barnes
Photographer: Marc Barnes, Submitted while Barnes was with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; he now works for the hospital built on the site of the Fort Belvoir, Va., U.S. Army base.
Description: Gabe Spencer watches intently as his mom, Heather, wife of a deployed Army major, represents military families to sign a steel beam at topping-out ceremonies for the new Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, set to open in 2011. Gabe and his four siblings were all born in military hospitals.