ENTRY DESCRIPTION
This image was taken on the waterfront in Buffalo, NY. It is a photograph taken in a grain silo which is a 150 feet high concrete edifice with huge 18" thick walls. It was used from approximately the 1930's to the 1960's by a local brewery in Buffalo to store hops and barley which was used in the brewing process. In the forground is a "funnel" which is the bottom portion of a 150 foot high circular storage chamber. The chamber was filled with hops and barley unloaded from huge Great Lakes freighters through the utilization of a grain elevator which moved the ships' cargo up to the top of the 150' high cylinder. The funnel controlled the flow of grain out of the cylinder. On the right portion of the photograph, as you look more deeply into it, you might make out a series of these funnels (each topped by these 150' high concrete cylinders) which fed a conveyor belt that moved the grains to waiting trucks for distribution to the brewery. Even though the silo has been vacant for over a half century, grain still ocassionally drops from the funnels. If you look at the window sill, you can get a sense of the thickness of the concrete walls.

AUTHOR
Steve Siegel purchased his first camera at the age of 58. With camera in hand, he then proceeded to reexamine and photograph the places that he had been exposed to, but perhaps had not really “seen.” He generally prefers to work in black and white, feeling that this is the most evocative medium to capture the true essence of the world around him.
He is a member of the Burchfield-Penny Museum, College Street Gallery Collective, Painting for Preservation, 464 Gallery and is an Exhibiting Member and Board member of the Buffalo Society of Artists, one of the oldest art societies in the country. He was won numerous awards for his work including being chosen in both 2012 and 2013 as a Merit Award winner in Black and White Magazine’s annual International Portfolio issue.

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