2011 - Images Of The Year
ENR's annual photo contest brings attention to inspiring construction photographs and the workers and projects they depict. But the contest is also designed to show appreciation for the people who take their cameras onto jobsites, often under difficult conditions, and capture great images.
Woodward Building, Ballantyne Corporate Park, Charlotte, N.C.
Woodward Building, Ballantyne Corporate Park, Charlotte, N.C.
Photographer: Ray Sepesy
Submitter: Submitted by Lisa Geddings, SteelFab, Charlotte, N.C.
Description: Sepesy set up the early morning shot then waited for the workers to inch into his camera frame from the left side. As they lowered each beam into place, the crew then worked their way across to prepare another beam. After he got the shot, he stepped back just to watch.
Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project, Annandale, Va.
Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project, Annandale, Va.
Photographer: Chuck Samuelson
Description: Samuelson, manager of special inspections for Jacobs Engineering, took this night- time shot of construction for the $2.6-billion, 23-mile extension of Northern Virginia’s Metrorail to Dulles International Airport. “We worked around the clock, and I was on site to observe the segmental construction,” he says.
NEL Pipeline Project, Hittbergen, Germany
NEL Pipeline Project, Hittbergen, Germany
Photographer: Veronica Romitelli
Submitter: Matteo Patera, Bonatti S.p.A.
Description: “It was very wet and cold,” says Romitelli, a Bonatti corporate photographer. “We followed the work throughout the day. Suddenly, at nightfall, the pipe, after having traveled under the entire width of the Elbe River, was released on the other side. It was a very emotional moment. The men were very happy and they celebrated the achieved goal.” The 56-in.-dia. pipeline is made up of 18-m-long, 15-ton sections, although this push and pull under the river moved 1.2 km all at once. The NEL Pipeline will link Europe to gas fields in Siberia.
Statue of Liberty renovation, New York City
Statue of Liberty renovation, New York City
Photographer: Brian Cury
Description: It took EarthCam Inc. founder Cury a decade and a second to get this shot, taken from the torch by a webcam he installed. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Cury tried in vain to contact the National Park Service to “gift” a camera to the statue. Then, with “her” 125th anniversary looming, he got a call out of the blue and doors opened wide. He has several cameras documenting the renovation, all gifted. “It’s my Mona Lisa of projects,” says Cury. “If I was Andy Warhol, this would be my ‘Marilyn.’”
Sarmiento Rail Project, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Sarmiento Rail Project, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Photographer: Piero Conti
Description: Conti, a quality manager for the Rome-based contractor Ghella S.p.A., took this photo to show the immensity of the 9-m-dia boring machine used for a new 17-km-long rail tunnel in Buenos Aires. “The colors of the sky seem the same as the shield, giving a sense of continuity,” he says. “The two cranes and the optics increase the perspective.”
Tocoma Hydro Plant, Lower Caronà River, Venezuela
Tocoma Hydro Plant, Lower Caroní River, Venezuela
Photographer: Fabrizio Frigerio
Submitter: Giovanni Frante, Impregilo S.p.A., Milan, Italy
Description: The Italian construction giant sends contract photographer Frigerio all over the world to document the firm’s projects. In the remote southeastern corner of Venezuela, he shot workers tying together a rebar cage before concrete placement as a 2,160-MW hydropower dam takes shape.
BC Place Revitalization Project, Vancouver, British Columbia
BC Place Revitalization Project, Vancouver, British Columbia
Photographer: Grant Mattice
Submitter: Jane McDonald, PCL Constructors Westcoast Inc.
Description: An irregular grid of gray cables against workers in red fascinated Mattice as he captured, often from a suspended catwalk, the installation of the world’s largest cable-supported retractable roof. This shot freezes a moment of calm before a roof hoist. “It was my job to sort through the industrial ‘chaos’ and find exciting images to document,” he says. “Sometimes it was difficult for me because I found everything to be so interesting.”
Dubai Metro 7th Creek Crossing, Dubai, UAE
Dubai Metro 7th Creek Crossing, Dubai, UAE
Photographer: Petros N. Zouzoulas
Submitter: Amber Thompson, Parsons Corp.
Description: Zouzoulas, a transit architect for Parsons, shot this photo on a safety inspection. The proximity of Dubai infrastructure projects is evident, as is the light contrast on a Middle East summer day. The site was dusty, and the temperature was 113° F. “Sweat from my face and hands smudged the viewfinder, but no lens changes were possible,” Zouzoulas says.
Music City Center, Nashville, Tenn.
Music City Center, Nashville, Tenn.
Photographer: Erin Parker
Description: Steel girders form abstract patterns throughout the Music City Center, a 1.2-million-sq-ft convention center project that includes a 350,000-sq-ft exhibit hall, a 57,000-sq-ft ballroom, a rolling double-pitched roof and an elevated roof in the shape of a guitar. Clint Hutchcraft, senior project manager for Lenex, the structural steel firm working with joint venture Bell/Clark on the project, says the girders will house a folding partition that separates the ballroom from the exhibit hall. Alignment and fabrication of each piece had to be exact for fit-up on site. The project contains some 13,338 tons of structural steel.
Mike OâCallaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, Boulder City, Nev.
Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, Boulder City, Nev.
Photographer: Alan Goya
Description: Goya was kayaking under the Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge when he shot this picture. He paddled close to the barrier that keeps river traffic from the dam to get the shot. Goya grew up in Hawaii, spearing fish. He did so much spearfishing that he filled his freezer and those of his neighbors as well. “No one wanted any more fish so I started taking pictures,” says Goya, who works as a photographer for Goya Media alongside his wife, who does the writing. They live near the center of the concentric-circle-shaped town of Boulder City, Nev. The town is known as the base camp for the workers who built Hoover Dam.
Lake Champlain Bridge, New York/Vermont
Lake Champlain Bridge, New York/Vermont
Photographer: Trey Cambern
Description: Cambern took this photo at dawn as the 405-ft-long, 85-ft-tall, 45-ft-wide prefabricated steel arch for the new Lake Champlain Bridge sailed toward its final destination this fall. Vermont lies to the left and New York state on the opposite shore. “I took that vantage point hoping for early morning light,” says Cambern. “But the colors and clouds worked out really well.”
Nation Towers Project, Abu Dhabi, UAE
Nation Towers Project, Abu Dhabi, UAE
Photographer: Prashanth Unnikrishnan
Submitter: Arabtec Construction LLC
Description: Things were looking up for Unnikrishnan as he caught a 400-metric-ton steel skybridge on its trip up to link a 65-story residential tower to its twin, a 52-story hotel and commercial tower. The pedestrian link was assembled 23.4 m above grade and raised in two stages before it was finessed into its final position. The span, which is more than 202.5 m above grade, is the world’s highest skybridge. It took that distinction away from the 170-m-high skybridge that connects the twin Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
BC Place Revitalization Project, Vancouver, British Columbia
BC Place Revitalization Project, Vancouver, British Columbia
Photographer: Grant Mattice
Submitter: Jane McDonald, PCL Constructors Westcoast Inc.
Description: Mainly a landscape photographer, Mattice had never documented construction, let alone the creation of the world’s largest cable-supported retractable roof. But the setting didn’t disappoint as he stood on a catwalk and captured a dramatic landscape of a different sort. “The sun was an added bonus,” he says. “We don’t get much of that in Vancouver.”
Ruby Pipeline, Winnemucca, Nev.
Ruby Pipeline, Winnemucca, Nev.
Photographer: Greg Whitaker
Description: Whitaker got to the jobsite by chopper, passing over wild horses, sheep and antelope. But sections for the 256-mile-long pipeline being built by MasTec Precision Pipeline are trucked 95 miles over roads like this to the encamped work crew. He says the shoot was “three days of amazing fun. Every time I looked through the camera, I was super excited!”
South Yoloten Gas Treatment Facility, Turkmenistan
South Yoloten Gas Treatment Facility, Turkmenistan
Photographer: Chun-Kwi Park
Description: Park, an employee of Hyundai Engineering Corp., captured a light-hearted moment among crews paving a facility for Turkmenistan’s largest gas field project, valued at almost $1.5 billion and set to produce 10 billion cu m of natural gas a year. For Hyundai and other South Korean partners, Turkmenistan is an emerging market.
Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command Center, San Diego
Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command Center, San Diego
Photographer: David Wambugu
Submitter: Paul Navarrette, Stronghold Engineering Inc.
Description: As quality-control manager of military contractor Stronghold Engineering Inc., Wambugu often captures tricky installations in his progress photos. Here, workers receive a bundle of solar panels for a $9.1-million retrofit to a 1926 defense building. The large, sawtooth roof, at 45°, called for fancy footwork as well as a muscular, 250-ton crane to place pallets in position.
Lemay Car Museum, Tacoma, Wash.
Lemay Car Museum, Tacoma, Wash.
Photographer: Michael Dickter
Description: This curved roof made of custom glulam arches will shelter the world’s largest collection of historic vehicles, says Dickter, photographer and graphic designer in the Seattle office of the project’s structural engineer, Magnusson Klemencic Associates. He used a Canon 7D with a Canon 10-22mm lens and chose a vantage point from an upper level overlooking the main level. “I chose a time to maximize the sun hitting the building and the drama of the shadows the arches were casting. I was fortunate to have a worker up there,” he says.
Huey P. Long Bridge Rehabilitation, New Orleans
Huey P. Long Bridge Rehabilitation, New Orleans
Photographer: Michael Beitzel
Submitter: Jim Nugent, project development specialist, Modjeski and Masters Inc., Mechanicsburg, Pa.
Description: Beitzel, a senior field services technician with M&M, has taken photos from this vantage point every year in December since widening work began in 2006. His firm designed the original bridge and the current widening project, and performed annual inspections for 76 years. “I have a long history with and admiration and pride in this unique structure,” he says. He took this recent shot from the railroad deck to show the contrast between the old bridge and the new construction.
Tres Rios Ecosystem Restoration and Flood Control Phase III, Phoenix
Tres Rios Ecosystem Restoration and Flood Control Phase III, Phoenix
Photographer: John Yost
Submitter: David Murphy, Marble Street Studio Inc.
Description: Owner of Albuquerque, N.M.-based Marble Street Studio and a seasoned construction photographer, Yost knows how to make the mundane look exciting. To get this dramatic shot last summer for his client HNTB, Yost, 65, climbed up to the excavator operator while he was loading trucks for a river remediation. The workers had been at it for more than an hour before the sunrise shot. “It was 107 degrees by the end of the day,” Yost recalls. Equipped with grade controls, the machine “had a really interesting electronic display,” he adds.
Water Treatment Plant, Austin, Texas
Water Treatment Plant, Austin, Texas
Photographer: Brent Asay
Description: “When I’m on a site, I’m always looking for the small details of the work going on,” says Asay, documents group manager for MWH, the construction management firm for this $359-million plant expansion, set to complete in 2014. A 35-year company veteran, Asay has parlayed his freelance photography experience into numerous MWH project photo assignments. “I saw the hands of the worker tying together rebar against a very clean blue background, Asay says. “It reminded me how structures are still built by the human hand, not some technology.”
Tempe Town Lake Pedestrian Bridge, Tempe, Ariz.
Tempe Town Lake Pedestrian Bridge, Tempe, Ariz.
Photographer: Dan Miller
Description: Miller’s perfectly timed, long-exposure shot depicts two 250-ton crawler cranes in a critical tandem lift. The rigs are placing a 228-ft-long pedestrian bridge span over a rubber-bladder dam in Tempe, Ariz. Miller, who engineered the lift for PCL Construction Inc., says the project had the cranes operating at up to 95% of their rated capacity.
East Side Access Project, Queens, N.Y.
East Side Access Project, Queens, N.Y.
Photographer: Patrick J. Cashin
Description: “They call it a soft-ground tunnel boring machine,” says Cashin. He was shooting as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority lowered the TBM into a cavern. “They made it a little bit of a ceremony,” he says. When it was level with his camera, the TBM happened to fit perfectly in the frame of Cashin’s 200-mm lens so he snapped this shot. A U.S. Navy veteran, Cashin traded his military career for photography. He has been shooting for the last 11 years and claims to have the best job on Earth.
World Trade Center Memorial, New York City
World Trade Center Memorial, New York City
Photographer: Victor Nordstrom
Submitter: Karen Kramer, creative director for program management consultant Louis Berger Group
Description: While documenting the progress of construction at the World Trade Center Memorial, the photographer, standing at the edge of the parapet of the north pool, had the rare opportunity to capture the scale of the memorial with a worker power washing the stone at the bottom in preparation for the opening of the plaza on Sept. 11, 2011. The north pool is built over the footprint of the original World Trade Center’s north tower.
Wastewater Reclamation Plant Upgrade, Tallahassee, Fla.
Wastewater Reclamation Plant Upgrade, Tallahassee, Fla.
Photographer: Brent Asay
Description: Asay shot this photo of workers lifting into place the lid of a digester on a wastewater treatment plant. He says when he saw a number of elements come together—the crane cable, sun and clouds—“the picture came to life as the worker on the right stretched back to look up at the crane.” Asay, manager of the document services group for project construction manager MWH, has parlayed his personal freelance skills into company progress photo assignments across the U.S.
Bruckner Expressway Bridge Rehabilitation, New York City
Bruckner Expressway Bridge Rehabilitation, New York City
Photographer: Keith Philpott
Submitter: Amy Hennings, HDR
Description: Philpott shot this midnight photo of ironworkers sandwiched between bridge decks to install steel reinforcing plates on this $60-million project set to finish this year. Able to crawl part way into the work area, he then pushed his camera further in so the photo was taken “from the hip,” using a tripod hastily fashioned from scrap iron, he says. “It was dark, loud, tight and dirty, somewhere between cave diving and coal mining,” Philpott adds. “But it was one of those environments that you just knew was loaded with evocative photos.” He shoots for HDR, the project engineer. For this photo, Philpott used a Nikon D3 camera, with a Nikkor 24-70 2.8 lens, set at 1/8 sec at f/4.5 exposure.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles
Photographer: John Livzey
Description: For Livzey, a freelance photographer, seeing a worker atop a construction site in Los Angeles one early morning presented a moment of opportunity. In the course of a few seconds, he took several photos using a 400-mm telephoto lens. “A photographer just sees things, and when you see something and you’ve got a camera in your hands and the right lens,” you take the picture, he says. He adds that the steel-erection phase is the most interesting time to take photos. “When it’s in the steel phase, you can see right through to the other side.”
Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project, Tysons Corner, VA.
Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project, Tysons Corner, VA.
Photographer: Chuck Samuelson
Description: Samuelson, manager for special inspections for Pasadena, Calif.-based Jacobs Engineering, says he thought the shotcrete lining an inbound Metrorail tunnel being built in Northern Virginia was especially beautiful. It is actually gray but appears green because of the lighting. The tunnels were bored using the New Austrian Tunneling Method, a painstaking, step-by-step approach. He took the picture while workers were smoothing the walls prior to the final step of waterproofing.
Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science, East Boothbay, Maine
Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science, East Boothbay, Maine
Photographer: Christopher Barnes
Submitter: Helen Novak, Consigli Construction
Description: “I love shooting construction,” says Barnes, who began his career in the early 1980s documenting work on Boston’s Red Line extension with a grant from the Cambridge Arts Council. Early one morning in October 2011, he shot through the morning mist as the sun rose over the Atlantic Ocean behind him. Barnes often shoots finished structures for architects, but says he prefers the “graphic potential of buildings when they’re going up.”
Palomar Medical Center West, Escondido, Calif.
Palomar Medical Center West, Escondido, Calif.
Photographer: David Cox
Description: I am the superintendent, and shoot as a ‘serious amateur,’” says Cox, who has had a long career in construction and is currently with the project’s CM, DPR Construction. In this photo, electricians from Berg Electric are about to energize the central plant’s 12-kV gear for the first time. Cox used a Nikon D-50. He has since upgraded to a Nikon D7000 and regrets he did not have it for this shot.
I-4/Selmon Expressway Connector, Tampa, Fla.
I-4/Selmon Expressway Connector, Tampa, Fla.
Photographer: Gary Borland
Description: The PCL/A-W joint venture team is using cranes and segment lifters to get cantilevered highway sections into place as three different overpasses take shape in this $389-million, major highway upgrade. The project will link two east-west corridors and connect I-4 to the Port of Tampa. The section in the middle of the image has counterweights on top until it is connected to the next cantilevered pier, says Matt Kappler of Cardno TBE, the engineering and inspection firm on the project. Adds Borland, also of Cardno TBE, “I think this shot exemplifies engineering at its best in that we have a roadway system seemingly hanging in midair and numerous start-finish points that all have to come together with great precision and accuracy. It’s like a puzzle coming together.”
Mercury City Tower, Moscow, Russia
Mercury City Tower, Moscow, Russia
Photographer: Harvey Smith
Description: Smith’s childhood dream was to be a photographer or to work on great international construction. But at 15 his school urged him to be a librarian. He went into construction anyway, and during a rough patch in life a few years ago, returned to photography. Of this shot, he says, “I am almost in paradise. I am working on what will be the tallest tower block in Europe. I have to go on site to record the works with photographs. The photo opportunities are enormous. On a cold, clear, frosty morning ... Moscow looks very dramatic.”
Dupont Fabros SC1 Data Center, Santa Clara, Calif.
Dupont Fabros SC1 Data Center, Santa Clara, Calif.
Photographer: Michael Kemper
Description: A project engineer for Holder Construction Co., Kemper was the coordinating manager for the mechanical, electrical and plumbing trades on this project. In this photo, Kemper captures craft workers from companies such as Cupertino Electric Inc. and Southland Industries being led by Holder’s safety supervisor, visible on the left, in a stretch-and-flex routine. Kemper says photography is “a passion” and hopes sometime to do finish photography for his company.
Ruby Pipeline, Winnemucca, Nev.
Ruby Pipeline, Winnemucca, Nev.
Photographer: Greg Whitaker
Description: Whitaker took this photo for an agency hired by MasTec Precision Pipeline, which installed 256 miles of gas pipeline near Nevada’s Black Rock Desert for El Paso Energy. He framed the shot to convey the size of the pipe and job. He says the people, clothes and textures make construction photography “a feast. I love the scale—especially in a place like northern Nevada.”