Concrete, at Night

This is the Lehigh Portland Cement Company in Union Bridge, Maryland.
I have been, for some time now, eager to photograph industrial factories and such at night but never found the time or the right conditions whenever I went. In Baltimore there a quite a few places but I never found somewhere where I could actually do it without a police escort or it was raining, too foggy or whatnot. Yeah, yeah I know excuse,s excuses.. I just so happened that I was cruising through Carrol County to the west of Westminster and Tanytown that I saw a large tower. So off I go to investigate and to my surprise I see the factory. So immediately I hit the gps to get my fix on the place.
I had thought to photograph the place during daylight hours but the dust and setting sun were against me. Even with a UV, haze, or even a Polarizing filter the results were not very good. So I set my sights on coming back at night like I really wanted to do.

5 days later I return but the weather wasn't exactly cooperating (my luck). However it was clear enough to get a decent photo of the place. In the first photo above I used my 85mm 1.8 at f9 for 4 seconds at 100 ISO. although very hard to see here, the photo shows several layers of black from the hills and trees. When this is printed it is more prominent. And for some odd reason I see lines cutting across my photo...Ughh! But you get the idea.
The next photo I took from near one of the entrances. I decided to go B&W with it. Seeing as in the were only a few red lights showing in the wrong places. And everything here is gray anyhow.
even though there was sort of a humidity issue it wasn't that bad and I believe it makes a nice impact on the photo helping to spread the light to the structure.


Here is a closer view of the photo. The detail is so much better when viewed at the proper size. The lens is the 18-70mm 3.5-4.5 Nikkor at 30mm 5.6 for .6 seconds, 100 ISO. A very nice lens a little soft on the edges but still nice. In this I like the truck on the right bottom. It has a rim light made up from all the other lights marking its silhouette in the frame. Above all, the detail is so in your face you can't stop your eye from moving for very long.

As of yesterday Aug. 13th the plant was in the local news over a mercury issue. Or more to the point about how much is actually coming out of the plants smokestacks. And what they're going to do about it. Unfortunately mercury is in the limestone rock naturally and is released as the temperature of the limestone reaches from 200°C and 700°C. Gotta have concrete, going to have to filter the mercury out somehow. Now to just zap it out of existence.

As usual please leave a comment for me. Tell me how I'm doing. Give suggestions, or criticism. Everybody has different tastes and I would love to hear about them. It also helps me to become a better photographer.
Thanks again and CYA next week!
Peace!