Nearpara Rubber Company: From Tire Reclaiming to Toxic Brownfield

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The Last Days of Nearpara Rubber I smelled it before I saw anything worth photographing. That warm, faintly sweet bite of old rubber, the kind that hits you somewhere between a tire shop and a summer highway, drifted through the first building the moment I stepped inside. The structure was burned out, charred and broken, rubble underfoot. But the smell was alive. And then I saw the pile. In the corner of the room, faded brown and heaped maybe two feet high, was a mound of baby bottle nipples. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of the small rubber tips, just sitting on the floor of a collapsed industrial building in Trenton, New Jersey. I stood there for a moment, genuinely confused, and then kept moving. Nothing like the smell of warmed-over rubber. Twenty minutes later, I understood even less. Through another door passage, I found the main source of the smell: six open metal trailer containers, still loaded with bagged baby bottle nipples, sitting in open air. Bags of them, mountains of bagged n...
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Prospect Park Ducks, Turtles & Swans (Sankyo Kohki)

A serene scene in Prospect Park with turtles basking on logs in the calm waters, surrounded by lush greenery. The sunlight filters through the leaves, casting a soft glow on the water's surface, highlighting the peaceful coexistence of wildlife in this natural urban retreat.

 A little bit overexposed than the first image. 


This morning I took an early morning shoot in the park with all the early morning bicyclists and joggers. I enjoyed it today because I opened up my camera and interchangeable lenses on the beautiful clove where three benches open up to the dark green pond full of fish and other unknowns.

I sampled the Komura Sankyo Kohki 135mm and the Samigon 35mm. The Kohki 135mm photos opened wide at f/3.5 causing a bit of overexposure due to the bright sun with zero clouds so early at 8 in the morning. I stopped it down around f/5.6 and f/8 and the pictures really started to shine with sharp colors and a nice contrast of greens and yellows. The Sankyo Kohki really sings at f/5.6. Old Japanese lenses really give you something more than auto-focus lenses. Many will argue modern lenses are better with better optics glass and coatings. In the alternative, while these old manual focus lenses might not have snazzy modern glass coatings and optics they still produce spectacular images in the hands of pros and new DSLR owners. If you don't believe me look up a post on Pentax forums where a fungus Takumar produces incredible images like it isn't even there. View it here.








Source: The Dead Lens Club - Pentax

Lens Info: Komura Sankyo Kohki f= 135mm

 Location: Prospect Park Brooklyn
Location: Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY, USA

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