ENR’s “2015 Year in Construction” Photo Contest Winners
The diversity of colors, lines, angles, textures and people in the construction industry is reflected in the winning images of ENR’s “2015 Year in Construction” photo contest. Ranging from bright-blue steel girders and the bizarre geometric forms of spooling cables to the array of workers toiling underground and high in the air, the pages ahead unveil a world of wonder on global jobsites.
Pipeline Maintenance, Kinder Morgan, Sagit Co., Wash.
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Photographer: Will Austin
Pipeline Maintenance, Kinder Morgan, Sagit Co., Wash.
Submitted by Ashley Kimberley, marketing director, IMCO General Construction.
A welder sets a valve on a 20-in. crude-oil pipeline in a shot Austin calls “a very difficult exposure. It was cold with heavy rain. I got stuck in deep mud up to my thighs and had to be pulled out.” Water entered both the camera and the lens, “but they survived.”
10 Hudson Yards, New York City
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Photographer and Submitter: Timothy Schenck
10 Hudson Yards, New York City
Schenck was drawn to this laborer's wistful look at the downtown skyline as he waited for the arrival of the next section of column reinforcing. “This is a view he sees all day, but he doesn’t seem to tire of it,” Schenck says. “There was also a really great sunset just beginning.” Schenck used a Nikon D600 camera with a 24-70mm zoom lens. “It was a quick snap as I was moving through.”
SUNY Polytechnic Institute Zero Energy Nanotechnology (ZEN) building, Albany, N.Y.
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Photographer and Submitter: Paul Knapick
SUNY Polytechnic Institute Zero Energy Nanotechnology (ZEN) building, Albany, N.Y.
“Often, when you’re overworked, you wish you could multiply yourself—the reflection shows what we all wish for,” said Knapick, referring to his picture taken on the site of the ZEN building. Knapick is a photographer for the contractor, BBL Construction Services. He shot the photo with a Nikon D300 using a 24-120mm zoom lens.
East Side Access Tunnel
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Photographer and Submitter: Rehema Trimiew
East Side Access Tunnel, New York City
Trained in film school, Trimiew was hired, in 2011, as a videographer by New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority and, later, transitioned to shooting video on the East Side Access tunnel project for AECOM, but she says she finds shooting stills more satisfying than producing videos. “It’s a lot more creative, and I’m doing my own kind of work,” she says. It also requires much less gear, which is a big deal when the jobsite is in a deep, long tunnel. Shooting stills, Trimiew also can deliver finished results faster. She spotted Zohra Odr, a sandhog with Laborers Local 147, pressing and hauling pairs of 25-ft-long No. 5 rebar on the city’s East Side Access site one day, when Trimiew was changing cards in a time-lapse camera for a video. Speaking of her photograph’s subject, Trimiew says, “She’s just doing her thing, 100%—agility, strength, power, capability, focus.”
Los Angeles Federal Courthouse
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Photographer And Submitter: Bradley B. McDermott
Los Angeles Federal Courthouse
McDermott was standing on the 10th-floor metal deck of the courthouse structure, 180 ft up from the ground floor, when he snapped an ironworker, 20 ft above him, receiving the bottom chord member of a truss. “I captured the image on the first [of two] shots,” says McDermott, an avid amateur photographer since 2008.
Oxford Ping On, Boston
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Photographer: Robert Umenhofer
Oxford Ping On, Boston
Submitted by Helen Novak, corporate communications specialist, Consigli Construction Co.
The photographer, who had two winners in last year’s contest, was assigned to shoot a topping-off ceremony at an 11,000-sq-ft high-rise on a tight site in Boston’s Chinatown. “The flash from the welder’s torch caught my eye. He was three stories up, so I backed up and put on a 200mm lens,” he says. The shot “had such strong compositional lines, with dynamic action at the intersection. It’s probably my favorite image this year.”
South 200 Link Extension, Seattle
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Photographer: Roger Marble
South 200 Link Extension, Seattle
Submitted by Heather Yount, communications coordinator, PCL Construction
Marble was intrigued by the geometry of this launcher for precast, post-tensioned bridge sections. As the project crew prepared to fly the span across a road, he waited for a break in traffic to step into the road and fire off five bracketed shots. “It was really overcast—bright, but that typical Seattle sheet of gray cloud, a giant softbox.” Using his Nikon D4 with a 24mm lens, Marble took his exposure reading on the workers to ensure shadow detail. He says that, at ASA 1600, the results he got were surprisingly satisfying.
Gerald Desmond Replacement Bridge, Long Beach, Calif.
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Photographer And Submitter: Marie Tagudena
Gerald Desmond Replacement Bridge, Long Beach, Calif.
“Geometrically beautiful” is how Marie Tagudena describes her photograph of a manlift set between columns on the estimated $1.5- billion cable-stayed bridge underway at the Port of Long Beach. Originally set to shoot only the columns against the sky, she waited for the rising man lift to hit just the right spot. Tagudena chose black-and-white because it left “only the shapes and their contrasts,” she says. A first-time construction photog, Tagudena aims to “bring inanimate objects to life and have viewers see construction in a way they never anticipated.”
New Irvington Tunnel, Sunol, Calif.
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Photographer And Submitter: Robin Scheswohl
New Irvington Tunnel, Sunol, Calif.
A worker inspects a steel pipe lined with cement mortar at the New Irvington Tunnel project, the last of three tunnels in the San Francisco Public Utility Commission’s $4.8-billion Water System Improvement Program, which was established to ensure a stable water supply in a seismically sensitive area. Inspired by the glow from the headlights in the tunnel, Scheswohl says the picture achieves “a surreal effect reminiscent of a sci-fi film.”
Gerald Desmond Replacement Bridge, Long Beach, Calif.
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Photographer And Submitter: Marie Tagudena
Gerald Desmond Replacement Bridge, Long Beach, Calif.
To photographer Marie Tagudena, lavender epoxy-coated rebar cages on the ground at this California bridge project evoked the image of a “metal womb,” particularly as she focused on the welder framed in the center opening. “It symbolizes this man giving the rebar its life,” says Tagudena, who adds that the photo needed only a “slight enhancement of the contrast and saturation.” An industrial photography specialist, she has been on the project site for about 30 months. Tighter seismic design mandates have increased the bridge’s cost, media reports say.
Blue Plains, Washington, D.c.
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Photographer: Michael Worthington
Blue Plains, Washington, D.C.
Submitted by Crystal Dellchiaie, senior marketing and public relations specialist, PC Construction
When Michael Worthington, who takes photos for engineering and construction firms throughout the U.S., caught sight of a manbasket carrying about 15 workers into the opening of a tunnel shaft at DC Water’s Blue Plains advanced wastewater treatment plant, he thought that it perfectly showed the “size and scope” of the PC Construction-CDM joint-venture project for a pump station and an enhanced-clarification facility.
Agua Clara Locks North Plug, Panama Canal Third Lane
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Photographer And Submitter: Edward Ortiz
Agua Clara Locks North Plug, Panama Canal Third Lane
In June, Oriz, a photographer on the project documentation team for the Panama Canal Expansion Program, was testing a new, full-manual 8mm fish-eye lens with his Nikon D800 when an excavator suddenly took on a monster-like appearance. Ortiz explains that, eventually, heavy equipment such as this would “eat” away an entire strip of land called the “north plug,” joining the fresh water of Gatun Lake through the locks’ approach channel to the salty Caribbean Sea.
Bergen To Linden Corridor Overhead Project, New Jersey
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Photographer: Trevor Clancy
Bergen To Linden Corridor Overhead Project, New Jersey
Submitted by David Murphy, Marble Street Studios
After days of rainy weather, in a laydown yard for utility PSE&G’s Bergen to Linden Corridor Overhead project, photographer Trevor Clancy says he was blessed with clear skies and direct sunlight, “which allowed me to capture this radial pattern of rebar silhouetted against the afternoon sky.” Further, he says he loves the image’s graphic composition, which shows the powerplant in the background and, filling the frame, the rebar cages for new transmission towers.
Baptist Memorial Hospital North Mississippi, Oxford, Miss.
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Photographer: J.T. Jones
Baptist Memorial Hospital North Mississippi, Oxford, Miss.
Submitted by Rachael Headley, marketing assistant, Robins & Morton
A superintendent with Robins & Morton, J.T. Jones says he continually exploring the capabilities of the camera in his iPhone 6 Plus, which he calls “a mini-computer.” He used it to shoot this photo of a shear-wall form being stripped away on a 600,000-sq-ft Mississippi hospital project. Of the hundreds of images Jones has taken to document the project, he says the royal-blue sky and the sun’s position in the lens for this shot looked “just right.” Although taken with almost 200 workers nearby, Jones likes how the photograph captures that “one moment where it looks like pure silence.”
The New New York Bridge, Tarrytown, N.y.
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Photographer And Submitter: Zachary Stokes
The New New York Bridge, Tarrytown, N.Y.
While tooling around in a boat on the Hudson River as an official photographer for the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement project, Zachary Stokes spotted a trio of workers atop a pile cap. They were preparing rigging for the next pick by the project’s gigantic floating crane, nicknamed “I Lift NY.” The 30-story crane was about to lift into place a 600-ton pile cap. “The rigging alone weighed, like, 1,900 pounds, and these guys were just dwarfed by it,” recalls Stokes. “Next to the crane, they were like little toy soldiers. People have told me that the photo looks like a construction Iwo Jima.”
Yuma Regional Medical Center, Yuma, Ariz.
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Photographer: Danielle Montick
Yuma Regional Medical Center, Yuma, Ariz.
Submitted by Susan Garritano, McCarthy Building Cos. Inc.
What started out as an early-morning stroll turned into a winning photograph. Montick, a 23-year-old project engineer on the Yuma Regional Medical Center project, climbed to the top of a 200-ft-tall tower crane to get a bird’s-eye view of the steel erection that had been performed the previous day. That’s when she saw the sun streaming through the American flag, waving atop the machine deck. “It was stunning,” she says of the view at sunrise. Shot with her iPhone, the photograph is a shining example of how even everyday construction workers can capture beautiful images just by being in the right place at the right moment and, of course, having a decent camera—any camera—at hand.
Agua Clara Locks, Atlantic Side, Panama Canal Third Lane
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Photographer: Edward Ortiz
Agua Clara Locks, Atlantic Side, Panama Canal Third Lane
Submitted by Lina Cossich, Panama Canal Authority
Using his Nikon D4 in manual mode one morning last May, Ortiz was shooting the installation of the guiding, bearing and sealing system for Gate No. 5 of the Panama Canal. During a break in the work, when he turned to take a photo of the reflection of the walls on the standing water, he saw a worker crossing the chamber. The lone worker “gave the structure a human dimension,” he says. When this image was snapped, the few inches of water in the chamber were mostly from rainfall, he notes.
Blue Plains Tunnel, Washington, D.C.
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Photographer And Submitter: Tim Magee
Blue Plains Tunnel, Washington, D.C.
“I was on assignment for Traylor Bros. at the Blue Plains tunnel project,” says Magee. “In between placing segments and as the ‘Lady Bird’ TBM crept forward, I noticed the incredible amount of hydraulic hoses and control lines behind the cutterhead and just had to get a shot to show the complexity and scale of the machine.” The photo was shot using a Canon 5D Mark III with a Canon EF24-70mm f/2.8L II USM Lens. “The 5D III has great image quality at the higher ISO settings, [which are] needed when using the available light in the sometimes dark tunnel locations,” he says. “For me, the right angle for this picture was right in the middle: I was trying to create as symmetrical a shot as possible. I was waiting for the right moment to gain access safely to get [that] angle … when the worker came into the shot. [The worker] shows the scale of the machine.”
East Side Access Tunnel, New York City
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Photographer And Submitter: Rehema Trimiew
East Side Access Tunnel, New York City
When Trimiew spotted Matthew Kester, a sandhog with Laborers Local 147, consolidating concrete deep inside a wall form on New York City’s East Side Access Tunnel site, she thought, “The guy is wedged in there, filling in the void in the form with concrete. It’s such a foreign-looking, strange place, and it’s such difficult work, but this is how all the walls get made.” She says that, before taking a shot, she always checks to make sure the workers are following all the safety rules. “Otherwise, [the company] will throw the picture out,” Trimiew says, adding, “I’m a very careful person.”
Us36 Bridge, Decatur County, Kan.
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Photographer And Submitter: Rob Percival
Us36 Bridge, Decatur County, Kan.
Early one morning before concrete trucks had arrived to do a deck pour, Rob Percival, a construction engineer for the Kansas Dept. of Transportation, looked across this bridge deck and noticed the ghostly workers in the haunting, extraterrestrial light. So, he decided to snap a picture with his iPhone. “I’m sure it could have been better with an old 35mm SLR camera—unfortunately, that was in my basement,” says Percival. His situation is one in which many construction workers find themselves: staring at an otherworldly sight and glad to have, at least, a smartphone.
399 Fremont, San Francisco
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Photographer: Kevin Shea
399 Fremont, San Francisco
Submitted by Christina Morrison, Swinerton Builders
Shea had been shooting views from 399 Fremont every five floors, from top to bottom, before the curtain wall went in. This shot happened at 11:18 a.m. in low winter light. The 50-year veteran photographer—who, after retiring from his job at a banking data center, turned pro two years ago—walked down the open stairway and suddenly saw the simple, clear scene of a worker patching the ceiling, with the Bay Bridge as a smashing backdrop. Shea finds inspiration in the “construction landscape and its workforce.”
399 Fremont, San Francisco
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Photographer: Kevin Shea
399 Fremont, San Francisco
Submitted by Christina Morrison, Swinerton Builders
Ninety minutes before this “Ghost Bridge” shot was taken, ironworkers atop 399 Fremont informed Shea that rebar cages would be lifted up after 11 a.m. To get to a good perch for the shot, Shea rushed down and across the way to a nearby tower that was under construction. He tracked down the construction supervisor, quickly took safety training and made it into position just minutes before the cages came into view. High up in the tower, Shea caught the moment, with the fog still shrouding the Bay Bridge. “The evolution of photography to digital has been immensely empowering,” says Shea.
Traylor Brothers Fabrication Shop, Evansville, Ind.
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Photographer And Submitter: Tim Magee
Traylor Brothers Fabrication Shop, Evansville, Ind.
“I shot the photo in the Traylor Bros. fabrication shop in Evansville,” says Magee. “Plasma cutters always seem to make for great subject matter, and with the 1-inchthick material this guy was working with, there were plenty of sparks.” The photo was shot using a Canon 5D Mark III with a Canon EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM Lens. “I was inspired by the light reflecting off of the large I-beam on the right side of the photo and positioned myself next to it at the right angle to capture the reflection and texture of the steel,” he adds. The edges and positioning of the beam help to draw the viewer’s eyes to the subject.
Whitney Museum, New York City
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Photographer And Submitter: Timothy Schenck
Whitney Museum, New York City
Ironworkers Matt McCloskey and Rigberto Campos, who work for the Post Road Ironworks, adjust railing elements on the new downtown, Renzo Piano-designed Whitney Museum, days before the museum’s opening. Schenck says, “I was struck by the large scale and shape of the building contrasted with the seemingly small ironworkers in their manlift and the whole scene silhouetted against a colorful sunset. All the elements of a good photo came together at once.” He captured the image using a Nikon D600 DSLR camera and a 55-200mm zoom lens. This photo is part of a multiyear documentary project that is being jointly undertaken by the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Renzo Piano Building Workshop.
Dome Of Visions, Stockholm
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Photographer And Submitter: Erik Mårtensson
Dome Of Visions, Stockholm
Mårtensson, staff photographer of Swedish contractor NCC Group, waited for the right moment to capture the completion of Scandinavia’s Dome of Visions. The temporary urban structure, the country’s second, transforms a vacant site into usable space for educational, commercial and cultural activity and boosts awareness of sustainable construction. Its design was inspired by Buckminster Fuller and his geodesic domes. Near dusk last fall, Mårtensson found a worker securing the last of the dome’s plastic panels. The structure was modeled after one NCC built in Copenhagen, but, this time, the building team increased the area of light intake while using 30% less facade material and 1,000 fewer bolts.
Gerald Desmond Bridge, Long Beach, Calif
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Photographer And Submitter: Jonathan Alcorn
Gerald Desmond Bridge, Long Beach, Calif.
Since the $1.5-billion project began in 2013, photographer Jonathan Alcorn has been spending about one day a month getting progress shots. “Using a midrange telephoto lens, I shot it far back, to get the scale of it, at sunrise on a nice clear day,” he says. Alcorn is very busy with a wide range of freelance assignments, including breaking news stories, celebrity portraits, and sports events, including Rose Bowls, Super Bowls and NBA finals.
Panama Canal, Panama
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Photographer: Mario Entero
Panama Canal, Panama
Submitted by Regina Lopez, Sacyr S.A.
With a camera slung under each arm, photographer Mario Entero stood on one of the lock chambers of the Panama Canal and framed up this photo. It wasn’t the workers that caught his eye but the 4,000-ton, 33-meter-tall lock gate behind them, he says, adding, “That’s what appealed to me.” To save time, Entero used a wide angle lens on one camera and a zoom lens on the other. In this case, he shot with the Canon 5D Mark III with a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens.
Jim Thorpe Memorial Bridge, Jim Thorpe, Pa.
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Photographer: Glenn Holcombe
Jim Thorpe Memorial Bridge, Jim Thorpe, Pa.
Submitted by Allan Myers
Glenn Holcombe was working with contractor Allan Myers to document steel erection on the new, four-span Jim Thorpe Memorial Bridge, which will carry state Route 903 over the Lehigh River. Holcombe says that, when he works these jobs, he looks for something different. Here, he was struck by the “choreography” of the shadows of the workers as the workers prepared for the next beam to be lifted. The shadows on the left are being cast by workers standing on the beam, leaning on the posts that their safety cables run through, and the shadows on the right are from workers in the baskets.
Panama Canal, Panama
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Photographer: Mario Entero
Panama Canal, Panama
Submitted By Regina Lopez, Sacyr S.a.
Climbing a high scaffolding beside 280,000 sq meters of concrete lock walls, photographer Mario Entero reached the top and waited, watching the clouds overhead. “The workers were still higher than me, so I waited there 20 minutes until we were level,” he says. The workers on the Panama Canal project were patching cavities, left by formwork anchors, and sanding the joints of concrete in the massive lock walls. And Entero was taking their photos—or, rather, taking photos of the lock. “They are the most impressive walls you can see in the world, and they were polished by hand on both sides of the isthmus,” he notes.
The New New York Bridge, Nyack, N.Y.
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Photographer: Trevor Clancy
The New New York Bridge, Nyack, N.Y.
Submitted by David Murphy, Marble Street Studios
Linking New York state’s Rockland and Westchester counties, the new bridge taking form on the Hudson River invites panoramic photographic compositions. While at the jobsite taking photos for HNTB, Trevor Clancy of Marble Street Studios heard an ironworker hammering away. “At … studs? Rivets? Not sure. I’m not an ironworker,” says Clancy. “The wider angle showed more context, but that didn’t have the same effect as zooming in tight.” And, zoomed in tight, the viewer might never know that the ironworker is alongside a deep girder for the bridge’s long causeway at its western end.
Indigo, Redwood City, Calif.
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Photographer And Submitter: George Baker
Indigo, Redwood City, Calif.
Just before finishing up his shoot late one afternoon at the Indigo residential project, photographer George Baker ascended a crane and found an unusual perspective from which to capture two workers troweling freshly placed concrete. “I make it a point to climb every tower crane I can get access to,” Baker says. “It almost always leads to interesting images due to the vantage point.” He used the rebar and long shadows to create zigzagging angles that act as a framing element to the workers, while the starkness of the fresh concrete provides a neutral background. Baker says he strives to bring a singular artistic identity to each project he photographs.
FL&L’S Port Everglades Clean Energy Center, Port Everglades, Fla.
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Photographer And Submitter: Nicholas Grancharoff
FL&L’S Port Everglades Clean Energy Center, Port Everglades, Fla.
In attempting to capture an image, a photographer can be surprised by a scene that sneaks up from behind. Shooting a welding crew that was working inside a heat-recovery steam generator (HRSG), Nicholas Grancharoff pivoted and was immediately struck by this image. Standing in the HRSG’s transition duct, he aimed his camera at the circle of light, just ahead of the turbine’s exhaust section. Snapping “three or four” images before clouds rolled in and the moment slipped away, the veteran photographer—and former industrial engineer—concentrated on the image of the circle, which he deliberately framed to be off-center. “That image reminded me of a wedding ring and eternity,” Grancharoff told ENR. “It was almost spiritual.”
Hilton Cleveland Downtown, Cleveland
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Photographer And Submitter: Brenda Sander
Hilton Cleveland Downtown, Cleveland
Ironworker Justin Riley is reflected in the curtain wall as he guides—with his foot—the steel-tube tie-in of a tower crane. The photo was taken during removal of the crane at the 26-story Hilton hotel under construction in Cleveland. “I was captivated by the focus of the ironworker in the reflection,” said Sander, an amateur photographer and administrative assistant for Turner Construction, the contractor. “He was framed by the lines of the curtain wall and highlighted by the white cloud behind him.”
Framingham State University Residence Hall, Framingham, Mass.
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Photographer: Robert Umenhofer
Framingham State University Residence Hall, Framingham, Mass.
Submitted by Helen Novak, corporate communications specialist, Consigli Construction Co.
Documenting the construction of a 371-bed campus residence hall, Umenhofer “was fortunate to be able to show the old and the new in one shot as well as the strong compositional elements and the human scale.” Using a 200mm lens “to compress the subject matter somewhat,” he combined two of his favorite themes, construction and architecture, in a single photograph. Spanning six stories on one end and five stories on the other, the structure boasts a brickand- granite facade.