With a recent photography tour being offered of the Fresh Kills Landfill I signed up immediately to take the tour. I have gone on the public tour and had a lot of fun (see here), but I wanted new angles and more time with part of the site. The former landfill (at once one of the worlds biggest) is being converted into a city park. A park 3x larger then central park.

My approach this time had to be different. I saw many similar things as well as new and different angles. My lens of choice was the Sigma 150mm macro (although a wide-angle did play a role.) Not really for close ups, but for the compression of a scene. Bringing this methane collector sites closer to other parts of the location; visibly. There is at least a mile or so between that pipe and the flareup station in the distance.

I tried to capture the field of vents you see along your travels through the park. If I went wide instead of with a telephoto those methane collectors would be so tiny you could barely make them out.

These collector sites are all around the area. They are designed to collect the methane and pump it to a collecting facility. The gas collected actually powers 2,200 homes in Staten Island, NY.

Since my last visit construction is much more visible. They are already working on facilities and recreation for the public to get them out to Fresh Kill and start taking advantage of its potential.

You can see the controversy that has surrounded the dump.  Now if you look at the location you would never recognize it. It looks as if Fresh Kills was part of the landscape. Development near Fresh Kills was continued even when the landfill was in use. On one side you find the heavily trafficked Richmond Ave. and on the other side neighborhoods. Evergreens along Richmond ave. keep most of it out of view.

Taking you out of the element of a landfill was also part of my photography agenda. I laid down and shot upwards to get this shot. It was not comfortable and very wet. All part of the fun.

As the clouds moved in photography got tough. When ever things get cloudy I really like to move toward shooting HDR (High Dynamic Range) images.

The capping process can be seen here. They are laying the earth layer over the plastic barrier. Reminds me of agriculture.

The day ended with an outlook over the William T. Davis Refuge. Unfortunately the cloud cover became so heavy that the sunset wasn’t an option. However that wasn’t going to stop me from doing something. So I decided to shoot a quick double layered panorama. I can’t wait to see vistas like these when the public fully gains access.

One of the best parts to me is that they are striving to make the area as natural as possible and more importantly include corridors for passing wildlife. It will be done by patches of uninterrupted forest. I can’t wait to witness it. All too often parks are strictly within their boundaries, but we need to realize wildlife knows no boundaries and we should create corridors and buffer zones to better accommodate our natural friends.