Illinois River Commerce

The Asian Carp has been in the news lately. It has been spreading upriver from the Mississippi through the Illinois River, and neighboring states with with an interest in the great lakes fishing industry have an understandable desire for it not to spread beyond Chicago. The damming and dredging of major rivers also has considerable environmental costs. Competing with all this is a desire to maintain the very significant profit of transporting bulk goods by barge.

None of this has a thing to do with the two photos I'd like to share, but I hope it helps establish a sense of context.

My primary interest was the water reflections of the towboat lights in the water. Heavy snow was falling, so detail is not what it would have been otherwise. I am very passionate about this river, and so would like an objective opinion about it as an image standing - or not - on its own merits.

Same boat, but converted to black and white and cropped to a 4 x 1 aspect ratio. Does this work?

All thoughts and opinions are very welcome. Thanks for looking.

Tom,

I understand the the Asian Carp is more sensitive to cold and this is killing them off. Is that true?

Asher

Hi Tom,
It's been a while since we've seen your river images!
Here's my thoughts on these two:
I like the reflections you've caught in the first image, however it seems something is lost by the tight crop.
In the second, you're correct in your own observation relating to the loss of detail due to the falling snow.
I think the concept has great potential. You are certainly in a unique vantage point, having this river traffic as your canvas.
I'd like to see more!

...and Asher - unfortunately the carp are unfazed by cold water. They winter over quite comfortably beneath a frozen surface.

John Angulat said:

Hi Tom,
It's been a while since we've seen your river images!
Here's my thoughts on these two:
I like the reflections you've caught in the first image, however it seems something is lost by the tight crop.
In the second, you're correct in your own observation relating to the loss of detail due to the falling snow.

Click to expand...

John,

Isn't the first essentially a crop of the second? The tough thing is to make the reflections more important. so cropping the image would seem to do that. Unfortunately, the crop itself upsets the expected length of the composition.



Tom,

Could you explain what the function of the vessels. Is the first one a tug? Is there any activity there of dredging.

Asher

John and Asher,

Thanks for taking time to look and comment.

Actually, the first photo isn't cropped. I used my 5DMKII with an old 100-400mm. So the reflection photo was taken at around 400mm rotated to vertical. The second, black and white, photo was taken at 100mm, and it was cropped to 12 x 4 from the original 12 x 8. Pretty much had this Sinsabaugh-like idea in mind while looking through the viewfinder.

The barge vessels are called tows. These things push more than tow, but the name comes from the old days when the only way to move a barge along a waterway was to tow it from the shore.

Damming any natural waterway turns what used to be a river into a series of pools. This slows down the flow of water considerably, and this, of course, causes silt to settle out of suspension. Consequently, the main channel must be dredged out on a regular basis. It's just part of the bargain.


I don't know if this unit was set up for channel dredging or not, but the barge configuration is similar for the various maintenance chores the Army Corps of Engineers are changed with performing.

The world of barge traffic is a relatively small one, and it amazes me how little attention it gets in the normal course of events. About the only time they come to the public's attention is when a barge goes out of control and takes out a bridge or some other structure.

This was taken using a 600mm for an "over the shoulder" view of the wheelhouse as the tow headed southward along the Mississippi River. Clinton, Iowa is in the distance.

Hi Tom,

A good set of pictures which touch upon the "secret world of" barges. You say that the barge traffic gets little attention and I can understand that. Here in Holland they are a bit more prominent as we have canals, rivers and barges all over the place in huge numbers. They have a certain appeal to me such that I end up taking barge/river/canal photos quite regularly.

Thanks for sharing

Cheers,

Hi Cem,

Thanks for taking the time to have a look and to comment. I'd sure like to see what barge traffic looks like in Holland, so please share some photos if you have a spare moment.

Tom

Tom,

I like the landscape shot of the crane barge backed by the wonderful line of trees behind it. There's the combination of raw mechanical power and the continuous work of nature going on around us, unabated and almost taken for granted.

I find this picture instructive as t reminds us of the power of nature requiring us to keep working just to keep up with what we think we've already complete!

Asher

Tom Robbins said:

Hi Cem,

Thanks for taking the time to have a look and to comment. I'd sure like to see what barge traffic looks like in Holland, so please share some photos if you have a spare moment.

Tom

Click to expand...

Hi Tom,

Thanks for allowing me to show some barge pictures. I have many of those but I have to decide which ones are worthy showing here. Perhaps this one as a starter?

Cem_Usakligil said:

Hi Tom,

Thanks for allowing me to show some barge pictures. I have many of those but I have to decide which ones are worthy showing here. Perhaps this one as a starter?

Click to expand...

Hi Cem,

I love the light, despite the wind whipping up the water, and the tan/yellow/orange reeds add warmth to the chilly weather against a cold toned backdrop/sky. I also like the contrast between the tranquil/moored barge, and the restless windy weather, a nice contrast.

Cheers,
Bart

Hi Cem,

I agree with Bart's assessment. This is a wonderful photo, and those clouds give it the finishing touch. I will keep your idea of using clouds to add an extra element in flat topography in mind.

The Illinois River waterway, as well as railroads, put the mid-nineteenth century canals out of business many decades ago. They are no longer used, and only traces of them remain here and there. From old pictures I've seen, the barges used in these old canals appear to be similar in size to the one in your photo - about 6 meters wide and 30 meters long. This suggests that the canals in Holland may also date back to the mid nineteenth century, or earlier, and remain viable to this day.

I'd very much like to see more of your barge photos, as well as photos of infrastructure related to them, Cem.

Tom