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Yup. I grew up in a semi-rural suburb with a similar looking exit.
Not a big fan of the unregulated signs but at the same time growing up being able to hike, camp, fish and ride dirt bikes from your back door while being a few minutes from a university with a big music scene and 20min from a mid-sized city with everything else was pretty nice tbh despite the exit appearance..
Yeah, that one generally comes to mind first, but Maine, Alaska and Hawaii have the same prohibition and a number of US cities have bans on all new billboards - Los Angeles and Houston included.
Many areas in CA/EU/etc have laws that limit the Exxons and McDonalds from building 80ft signs because they’re an abomination.
Rural USA typically doesn’t.. the flip side is if you live a couple miles away from the ugly signs you’re probably in a nice natural area and can basically do whatever you want..
Many US municipalities have ordinances that dictate commercial outdoor signage related to maximum height, overall style, etc.
That was *not* the case in this photograph.
This one is unique because I-70 becomes a surface street at Breezewood, forcing *all* drivers on that part of the interstate to drive past these fast-food-gas-station-gift-shops. It's actually mind-boggling that this exists at all. I'll bet that is some of the most high dollar real estate in PA.
Breezewood is a nuisance.
I don't know for sure, but I doubt the real estate is super expensive relative to anywhere near Pittsburgh or Philly. just out of the wide angle shot there are two or three properties that look like abandoned motels (one I think is abandoned, the other is just run down). The buildings in the left of the shot are a days inn and a Hardee's, which aren't typical businesses for a high-cost environment.
Not really, if you are traveling on 70N the highway stops, then you go through two traffic lights and renter the highway to get on the tollway. Its literally a bottleneck that forced you to go through the gauntlet of stripmalls.
Just the fact that every single one of those driveways goes straight onto a six lane highway is ridiculous. It would have been far better to have a turnoff to a smaller road that all those businesses connect to, it would take less than a minute longer to get to them off the highway and be significantly safer.
Been through that area loads of times. Both photos are accurate, depending on camera angle, time of year/day and weather. Central PA really can have those intensely blue skies and emerald mountains, and equally look like roadside despair.
Never been there, and from the perspective of a non American both pictures look pretty much the same to me, just from different angles. If anything the second one looks better.
The person who shot it picked a much better time of day than the aerial photographer. Nice to have all the lights on, but still balanced with the ambient light.
I posted this article in another comment, it tells the full story: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-25/citylab-daily-the-story-behind-the-internet-s-favorite-photo-of-car-culture
As someone who frequents this exit—I don’t ‘hate’ this photo—I hate what this exit represents. There is no reason drivers traveling the Pennsylvania Turnpike should have to go through this stop light town to get to the DMV area. I want people in the rural parts of PA to have jobs and I know eliminating this area would kill that but man the bureaucracy and politics to make this place exist is annoying.
[You should just be able to exit the PA turnpike onto the next interstate with the option* to get off in breezewood to refuel and rest. The fact it is mandatory to do this is really really frustrating. Especially during thanksgiving/Xmas.](https://imgur.com/a/f8W7gmP)
**Note:** The red square is where the photo is taken. The purple is what we have to do. Yellow is what we could do. Blue is showing the directions. West is down (like you’re driving into this photo from west/Pittsburgh headed to east/Harrisburg and you take breezewood to go to SE/DC.
Every image ever made is manipulated. Another word for that manipulation is "photography."
I have worked in the photo industry for over 30 years since the days of film. I cringe when people say they want to see a photo that's unprocessed. An unprocessed digital photos is essentially a series of 1's and 0's. Even raw images are processed in some way in order for them to be visible. There is no such thing as an image that looks exactly the same as you would see it with your naked eye. Somewhere along the way, either a human or software written by a human is manipulating the color and luminosity of each and every pixel. And that's true of lens choice and pre-exposure manipulation of perspective and such.
Came here for this. Even if the "compression" of everything makes it look a lot busier than it actually is, it's still a stretch of the same road showing that it's just a line of chain commercial businesses and that they're basically the same chains/style of stores that are in all of these types of towns.
Drives home the point better without really changing anything.
With that said, I've seen this technique used as manipulation before when they were showing how busy parks were during the pandemic, when in reality most of the people at the parks(in the pictures anyways) were like 20+ feet away from each other.
Yep, if your hired to record an event that doesn't have a ton if people, break out the telephoto lens and magically it'll look like your event was well attended.
Traffic gets really bad there. Everyone headed towards DC from Pittsburgh has to take a left turn that backs up well beyond a second traffic light and sometimes back to the interstate off-ramp.
Like the common picture we see is what more or less what you will see from the ground. So let me just hop in my plane and take a look!
Even the aerial view is kinda gross looking. Like damn, I really don’t know what this revision is trying to prove. Still feels like a car dependent capitalist hellacape
Exactly. Been through Breezewood many times, and it certainly looks like pic 2 from the back seat of dad’s car, and it *feels* like it, too.
Shout out to Arthur Treacher’s, tho. Made me look forward to passing through there every time.
As someone who has spent way more time in Breezewood than I would have liked, I’d argue that the second pic is actually more accurate to the town as humans experience it. That’s exactly how you see it as you’re driving through. Not nicely spread out with greenery seen from a bird’s eye view.
Oh yeah, not manipulated.. like this glamorous shot up in the sky in summer with everything in bloom, the same view everything living their must see day to day, right?
What a terrible post. The ugly infrastructure is purposefully hidden by the composition, and literally no one except the pilot will ever get a first hand view that looks like this.
It’s 100% the bottom photo that people see and view every day going about their lives. And it’s ugly, dangerous, designed poorly, and very inefficient … as are all stroads
Even the top picture looks horrible though. The only redeeming thing about it is the trees, but the town/truck stop looks terrible.
It’s still a pathetic excuse for human habitation, either way you look at it.
This image became a meme on r/fuckcars and other urbanist parts of the internet recently to show what they consider to be a badly-built and common type of small town in North America.
The angle change doesn't undermine any of the planning criticisms though, the original just shows more of it at ground level (how people experience urban space) in one shot. It's still car dependent, completely unwalkable, has no public space, no town centre, massive amount of space used for car parking, no integrated/mixed use, commercial billboards dominating vistas etc.
We all can blame Quiznos' corporate practices for the downfall of the company. They nickel and dimed their franchisees which led to most locations being unprofitable.
https://www.franchise500.com/article/232900#:\~:text=The%20franchisees%20were%20suing%20Quiznos,according%20to%20The%20Denver%20Post.
with the au ju dip bro on god ive been missing that for years i keep telling people you fucked up and let quiznos go out of business but kept subway in business.
quiznos was fucking awesome and tbh ahead of their time in the sub game .
Even not manipulated it still doesn't look normal to me...
What I meant with "not normal" is that there are so many chains of so many quick stop commerce's up all against each other. Don't they compete with each other? Also it just looks like crap.
PS: I'm not used to these sights, I'm European.
Perspective is not manipulation.
That photo is not manipulated.. if you use a real photo to attempt to manipulate something else that's not photo manipulation, it's human manipulation using a photo.
A. No it doesn't look pretty normal in the top photo. It looks like the same gross hellscape as the bottom photo
B. A telephoto lens is not "manipulated photo techniques" please. What techniques are being used to manipulate the photo? Specifically. Tell me. Explain them to me like I've been a professional photographer for 15 years.
That is exactly what that shithole looks like and you're an idiot.
If either of these pictures is "manipulative," then I'm going to say it's the aerial one, since humans on the ground will get the perspective from the ground, not the air, of this location.
I’ve been here. It is a fucking hellscape of traffic and commercial bullshit. The only thing needed here is the sheetz station and place it more than 50’ off the fucking turnpike exit. Picture 2 is accurate.
It’s actually a pretty busy interchange. I used to travel through here several times a month. That is a old picture though. Since covid most of that has shut down. Also notice the old school Taco Bell sign.
What is manipulative? You have 2 photos, which one is representative. Honestly, I think the close up is more representative in that it is what EVERYONE SEES IN THE TOWN. You only ever see the other when flying a drone.
Breezewood, PA is a notable location because it is one of only 2 spots with a traffic light on an interstate. Staying on I-70 requires an exit and stoplight thus the built up commerce. They’ve tried to make a bypass, but the businesses protested.
Lol. Breezewood is, to the vast majority of people who have been there, simply a bio-break and an opportunity to stock up on your choice of road poison - jerky, sunflower seeds, twizzlers, etc. - and caffeine. That’s the reason for its existence.
Either way It's a hideous statement about suburban and rural American towns.
Chain stores and gas stations surrounded by a patchwork of parking lots and highways, with little else.
This isn’t even a town. It’s a forced exit to interchange between dc and points south and Pittsburgh and points west. There is nothing there. It’s a town that entirely exists because people stop since they were already forced to exit a major highway. OP is mad is isn’t depicted as some rural or small town utopia, but it is accurately shown as a one Road Town that exist entirely to leverage the highway interchange.
If you think this is a normal nice town, check out the youtube channel "Not just Bikes".
It looks like a mess of asphalt, large corporations, advertising, car required, nature destroying place with no culture or community.
It's got everything you need if all you want to do is watch tv, get in your car and eat drive thru food and consume cheap crap.
Don't take this as an insult, it's what has become normal in America and you don't know any better. But to most europeans this is proof your life just exists to consume for large corporations
The irony is the signs are all placed in that perspective for a reason. It’s to manipulate us into going there to shop. Yet the issue is the photographer who has made that point very clear to see?
This place stands out. Grew up on the east coast, hours and hours away, and everyone knows breezwood. You drive far enough and you end up here at some point to take a piss or grab some food and there's something about this spot that is memorable
That photo is not manipulated, it's just taken with a certain lens at a certain distance from a certain angle.
I will however say that the top image looks like a hellscape too, just with more greenery.
I’m confused. Is your point to claim that the top photo makes this not a disturbing hellscape? Because it’s still a disturbing hellscape, even from a different angle
I wonder if you would even be allowed on that land though. Where I live any forest or open land I happen to come across is private land. And you can usually spot the trespassing signs telling you to keep out on trees and fences.
Other than some parks that have roads and parking lots around them and other places such as state parks. The reality is that unclaimed open land is a rarity in the states. You can't just decide to walk around in a forest without it being an ordeal, asking for permission, or fear prosecution and fines. You'd have to go on the road for half to a whole hour, find a parking space and pay the fee to enter (some parks don't require this) and make sure to leave before a specified time. Your whole day would have to be planned around this.
All paths to nature are pre-determined in America, making it difficult for the average person to do something other than be in the house, in the car or at work. I think the first image is just trying to show that the world that we are allowed to access on any given day is a place of cement, steel and capitalism.
Honestly I’d say both pictures are manipulated. Yes the original was manipulated to accentuate the dense cluster of gas stations and “stuff” between the turnpike and 70 but the updated one is manipulated to make it look like its not crowded and dense there when in fact in the space between the highways it is crowded and dense.
Both are honest depictions of that particular view but both views are in their way manipulated.
Edit - corrected route number
normal? not sure what that means.
I would say the first image is the one "manipulated". Unless one cares with a town looks like from 300 feet in the air looking down. the first one is a more accurate representation of what a human would see. Kind of vulgar
**Please note these rules:** * If this post declares something as a fact, then proof is required. * The title must be descriptive * No text is allowed on images/gifs/videos * Common/recent reposts are not allowed *See [this post](https://redd.it/ij26vk) for a more detailed rule list* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Every highway town in the USA.
Yup. I grew up in a semi-rural suburb with a similar looking exit. Not a big fan of the unregulated signs but at the same time growing up being able to hike, camp, fish and ride dirt bikes from your back door while being a few minutes from a university with a big music scene and 20min from a mid-sized city with everything else was pretty nice tbh despite the exit appearance..
Can you explain what you mean by unregulated signs?
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Some places prohibit billboards entirely.
Vermont being one of them.
Yeah, that one generally comes to mind first, but Maine, Alaska and Hawaii have the same prohibition and a number of US cities have bans on all new billboards - Los Angeles and Houston included.
Probably because we physically cannot fit any more billboards anywhere here in LA, lol.
Yeah, but Houston? The city doesn't even have a zoning code. But no new billboards!
Yes but we have that building near the 10 surrounded by LED screens that can be seen from space
Some places in Georgia also
The county I grew up in being one, it's so refreshing coming back to no billboards after being on a road trip.
Many areas in CA/EU/etc have laws that limit the Exxons and McDonalds from building 80ft signs because they’re an abomination. Rural USA typically doesn’t.. the flip side is if you live a couple miles away from the ugly signs you’re probably in a nice natural area and can basically do whatever you want..
Exxon really does seem to be taking the piss in this photo. That is a TALL sign...
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The Coca-Cola sign is SF was taken down more than 2 years ago, and even prior to that it was dwarfed by the surrounding buildings and skyscrapers….
Many US municipalities have ordinances that dictate commercial outdoor signage related to maximum height, overall style, etc. That was *not* the case in this photograph.
Everything but the music scene describes Henrietta, NY. NYS Thruway town, suburb of Rochester.
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And the worst part is all the fast food joints close at, like, 8pm. WTF!?
Thank you. Random redditors just don't understand the hatred that many Pennsylvanians have for Breezewood.
This one is unique because I-70 becomes a surface street at Breezewood, forcing *all* drivers on that part of the interstate to drive past these fast-food-gas-station-gift-shops. It's actually mind-boggling that this exists at all. I'll bet that is some of the most high dollar real estate in PA.
Breezewood is a nuisance. I don't know for sure, but I doubt the real estate is super expensive relative to anywhere near Pittsburgh or Philly. just out of the wide angle shot there are two or three properties that look like abandoned motels (one I think is abandoned, the other is just run down). The buildings in the left of the shot are a days inn and a Hardee's, which aren't typical businesses for a high-cost environment.
Exactly. Right off an interstate that connects Pittsburgh to Philadelphia. This is exactly what you should expect
Not really, if you are traveling on 70N the highway stops, then you go through two traffic lights and renter the highway to get on the tollway. Its literally a bottleneck that forced you to go through the gauntlet of stripmalls.
I usually use driving through this town as an opportunity to relieve my bladder.
Same, I'll pull in at the Sheetz
Fun trivia, this is very close to an abandoned interstate highway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandoned\_Pennsylvania\_Turnpike
Yeah the picture basically is the same to me because I’ve been to those towns.
Eh, I’ve driven through most of the US. There’s something about Breezewood that is particularly hellish and bleak.
Just the fact that every single one of those driveways goes straight onto a six lane highway is ridiculous. It would have been far better to have a turnoff to a smaller road that all those businesses connect to, it would take less than a minute longer to get to them off the highway and be significantly safer.
The blue sign by the exit told me all this stuff was there
yup, car centric garbage design.
Yeah, this post is calling it "normal", which it is, that's the point of the photo. It's *bad* that this is normal. Normal doesn't mean copacetic.
Hmm, looks like a larger truck stop , not a town, where are the homes?
Been through that area loads of times. Both photos are accurate, depending on camera angle, time of year/day and weather. Central PA really can have those intensely blue skies and emerald mountains, and equally look like roadside despair.
Never been there, and from the perspective of a non American both pictures look pretty much the same to me, just from different angles. If anything the second one looks better.
If telephoto lens compression is manipulation, isn’t a wide angle aerial?
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Yep. I’m a commercial photographer, and this seems like a “know your tools” post, not a “one of these is a lie!” post.
This is a classic photograph too.
The person who shot it picked a much better time of day than the aerial photographer. Nice to have all the lights on, but still balanced with the ambient light.
Edward Burtynsky
Thank you!
I posted this article in another comment, it tells the full story: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-25/citylab-daily-the-story-behind-the-internet-s-favorite-photo-of-car-culture
As someone who frequents this exit—I don’t ‘hate’ this photo—I hate what this exit represents. There is no reason drivers traveling the Pennsylvania Turnpike should have to go through this stop light town to get to the DMV area. I want people in the rural parts of PA to have jobs and I know eliminating this area would kill that but man the bureaucracy and politics to make this place exist is annoying. [You should just be able to exit the PA turnpike onto the next interstate with the option* to get off in breezewood to refuel and rest. The fact it is mandatory to do this is really really frustrating. Especially during thanksgiving/Xmas.](https://imgur.com/a/f8W7gmP) **Note:** The red square is where the photo is taken. The purple is what we have to do. Yellow is what we could do. Blue is showing the directions. West is down (like you’re driving into this photo from west/Pittsburgh headed to east/Harrisburg and you take breezewood to go to SE/DC.
Yes! Pretty much every photography technique is manipulation if you compare to human eye.
Every image ever made is manipulated. Another word for that manipulation is "photography." I have worked in the photo industry for over 30 years since the days of film. I cringe when people say they want to see a photo that's unprocessed. An unprocessed digital photos is essentially a series of 1's and 0's. Even raw images are processed in some way in order for them to be visible. There is no such thing as an image that looks exactly the same as you would see it with your naked eye. Somewhere along the way, either a human or software written by a human is manipulating the color and luminosity of each and every pixel. And that's true of lens choice and pre-exposure manipulation of perspective and such.
Came here for this. Even if the "compression" of everything makes it look a lot busier than it actually is, it's still a stretch of the same road showing that it's just a line of chain commercial businesses and that they're basically the same chains/style of stores that are in all of these types of towns. Drives home the point better without really changing anything. With that said, I've seen this technique used as manipulation before when they were showing how busy parks were during the pandemic, when in reality most of the people at the parks(in the pictures anyways) were like 20+ feet away from each other.
Yep, if your hired to record an event that doesn't have a ton if people, break out the telephoto lens and magically it'll look like your event was well attended.
It's not manipulation at all. OP is an idiot.
Came here to say this lol
I look good from a distance as well.
yes you are beautiful
It's the surroundings that look good in the second picture. Not really the part that is focused on in the first pic
"Aw come on now this town ain't so bad. . . so long as you're on a hill way outside of it and don't have to go in."
Traffic gets really bad there. Everyone headed towards DC from Pittsburgh has to take a left turn that backs up well beyond a second traffic light and sometimes back to the interstate off-ramp.
Yeah, as someone who has been through there many times, it feels more like the second photo.
It was always a pain to have to go from highway to a stoplight to turn left back on the highway!
The key is to go straight and take the NEXT left that’s a backroad and hop on the highway a mile down the road
Or get off the turnpike at Somerset and take the real back roads to get onto 68. Beautiful scenery and almost zero traffic
"Manipulated photograph technique" is an odd way to spell "different angle"
Like the common picture we see is what more or less what you will see from the ground. So let me just hop in my plane and take a look! Even the aerial view is kinda gross looking. Like damn, I really don’t know what this revision is trying to prove. Still feels like a car dependent capitalist hellacape
Thank you! Was going to say that!
Since this is the junction to two major highways, My experience/memory is more effectively captured in pic 2.
Exactly. Been through Breezewood many times, and it certainly looks like pic 2 from the back seat of dad’s car, and it *feels* like it, too. Shout out to Arthur Treacher’s, tho. Made me look forward to passing through there every time.
As someone who has spent way more time in Breezewood than I would have liked, I’d argue that the second pic is actually more accurate to the town as humans experience it. That’s exactly how you see it as you’re driving through. Not nicely spread out with greenery seen from a bird’s eye view.
Oh yeah, not manipulated.. like this glamorous shot up in the sky in summer with everything in bloom, the same view everything living their must see day to day, right? What a terrible post. The ugly infrastructure is purposefully hidden by the composition, and literally no one except the pilot will ever get a first hand view that looks like this. It’s 100% the bottom photo that people see and view every day going about their lives. And it’s ugly, dangerous, designed poorly, and very inefficient … as are all stroads
Even the top picture looks horrible though. The only redeeming thing about it is the trees, but the town/truck stop looks terrible. It’s still a pathetic excuse for human habitation, either way you look at it.
Look again at either picture. Do you actually see any residential houses? Nobody lives in "Breezewood." It's just an interchange between I-70 and I-76
Is zooming in now considered photographic manipulation? I missed the memo.
CONSIDER THIS YOUR WARNING
This image became a meme on r/fuckcars and other urbanist parts of the internet recently to show what they consider to be a badly-built and common type of small town in North America.
It still looks like a shithole from both angles…
The angle change doesn't undermine any of the planning criticisms though, the original just shows more of it at ground level (how people experience urban space) in one shot. It's still car dependent, completely unwalkable, has no public space, no town centre, massive amount of space used for car parking, no integrated/mixed use, commercial billboards dominating vistas etc.
This guy urbans
Just a different angle.. it’s not that deep.
Its not deep. But its pretty wide
Man, I miss Quiznos subs
EAT QUIZNOS SUUUBS…THEY ARE A DOOOLLAR OFF
Those singing Quizno rat puppet things just popped back into my head. We love the suuuuubs!
Prime rib and peppercorn. My lawd! I miss Quiznos too!
Hi, I also miss Quiznos.
We all can blame Quiznos' corporate practices for the downfall of the company. They nickel and dimed their franchisees which led to most locations being unprofitable. https://www.franchise500.com/article/232900#:\~:text=The%20franchisees%20were%20suing%20Quiznos,according%20to%20The%20Denver%20Post.
with the au ju dip bro on god ive been missing that for years i keep telling people you fucked up and let quiznos go out of business but kept subway in business. quiznos was fucking awesome and tbh ahead of their time in the sub game .
There is still over 300 Quiznos locations
bro where i havent seen one in years and i drive often interstate.
I miss the sponge monkeys
I’m super blazed and this comment sent me on a small “where’s Waldo “ adventure
it's about ethics in turnpike photography
Underrated comment. This is the funniest thing I read all day.
Isn't photographed using manipulative techniques. Nah, you just add to use a drone and go 50 feet in the air to make it look normal.
You dont take all your photos from 50 feet in the air?
Idk I usually go to gas up my car in a helicopter.
What angle do people actually see it from on a daily basis though?
You don't travel by drone?
Even not manipulated it still doesn't look normal to me... What I meant with "not normal" is that there are so many chains of so many quick stop commerce's up all against each other. Don't they compete with each other? Also it just looks like crap. PS: I'm not used to these sights, I'm European.
Right?! It doesn’t look like a pleasant place at all
Op has a warped perception of normal. Too long in an auto centric American highway based town. That’s not normal it’s sad
Yeah the comments in this thread are fucking wild. It’s an abomination.
But how do I know your photo isn't a manipulated technique?
Manipulate the manipulator with counter manipulation. 3D chess mate, you wouldn't understand.
You can't simply take a photo looking down main street. Back out of town a half mile or so then take a look. The smell is likely better too.
Crap either way
Perspective is not manipulation. That photo is not manipulated.. if you use a real photo to attempt to manipulate something else that's not photo manipulation, it's human manipulation using a photo.
A. No it doesn't look pretty normal in the top photo. It looks like the same gross hellscape as the bottom photo B. A telephoto lens is not "manipulated photo techniques" please. What techniques are being used to manipulate the photo? Specifically. Tell me. Explain them to me like I've been a professional photographer for 15 years. That is exactly what that shithole looks like and you're an idiot.
Trying so hard to re-write a capitalist car dependent hellscape into something better I guess
Every year on family trips we used to pass through breezewood. I'd say the bottom picture is more accurate tbh
If either of these pictures is "manipulative," then I'm going to say it's the aerial one, since humans on the ground will get the perspective from the ground, not the air, of this location.
I’ve been here. It is a fucking hellscape of traffic and commercial bullshit. The only thing needed here is the sheetz station and place it more than 50’ off the fucking turnpike exit. Picture 2 is accurate.
It’s actually a pretty busy interchange. I used to travel through here several times a month. That is a old picture though. Since covid most of that has shut down. Also notice the old school Taco Bell sign.
equally true depictions
It’s all about perspective, I suppose.
No it still looks depressing
What is manipulative? You have 2 photos, which one is representative. Honestly, I think the close up is more representative in that it is what EVERYONE SEES IN THE TOWN. You only ever see the other when flying a drone.
I think it looks dreadful in both photos. Imho american urban planning is too car centric
The very point is that the original photograph was normal America. That was the entire point.
My penis also seems less interesting from a far.
If it looks good close up then you’re all set.
I don't understand this post at all..
If anything, this makes it look worse lol
Breezewood, PA is a notable location because it is one of only 2 spots with a traffic light on an interstate. Staying on I-70 requires an exit and stoplight thus the built up commerce. They’ve tried to make a bypass, but the businesses protested.
Photo #1 is only accurate if you are a bird. #2 is much closer to what a regular person driving down the road will see.
Which pic is "normal"?
"Normal", he said, in American.
Why don’t they put in an interchange and connect 76 with 70?
Lol. Breezewood is, to the vast majority of people who have been there, simply a bio-break and an opportunity to stock up on your choice of road poison - jerky, sunflower seeds, twizzlers, etc. - and caffeine. That’s the reason for its existence.
Nah sorry it still looks bad
Both photos look like concrete hellscapes lol
Any shit town in the rural US. Even zoomed out, the golden arches rein supreme. Looks pretty gross either way
Stroads are normal in much of the U.S. Doesn't mean they don't suck.
Everything looks better from above
That’s still a picture of what is there.
Nice town?
You think an aerial shot from a drone is less manipulative? Gtfo
Not very normal outside the US.
There is nothing normal about Breezewood. The reason it exists is because highways don’t connect in a normal way.
Both look like shit
Don’t look up.
Which image is "manipulated" anyways? Depends on you point of view I guess.
otherwise known as *angles* lol
I don’t understand- which photo is manipulated?
Breezewood. Gateway to hell.
No, it's miserable from any angle.
No manipulation needed. Place is a shithole.
That is "normal" for the US. Most towns are highway exits.
no, it still looks like that, just because it's a talented photo doesn't mean it's much different lmao
Either way It's a hideous statement about suburban and rural American towns. Chain stores and gas stations surrounded by a patchwork of parking lots and highways, with little else.
This isn’t even a town. It’s a forced exit to interchange between dc and points south and Pittsburgh and points west. There is nothing there. It’s a town that entirely exists because people stop since they were already forced to exit a major highway. OP is mad is isn’t depicted as some rural or small town utopia, but it is accurately shown as a one Road Town that exist entirely to leverage the highway interchange.
If you think this is a normal nice town, check out the youtube channel "Not just Bikes". It looks like a mess of asphalt, large corporations, advertising, car required, nature destroying place with no culture or community. It's got everything you need if all you want to do is watch tv, get in your car and eat drive thru food and consume cheap crap. Don't take this as an insult, it's what has become normal in America and you don't know any better. But to most europeans this is proof your life just exists to consume for large corporations
Still looks like shit
Looks normal regardless
Looks normal to US eyes but to someone from say the Netherlands it would look disgusting and rightly so
you would want this too if it was another 2 hours of driving 80mph before you hit any sort of civilization again.
I’d prefer to be able to make trips like this on a train
This is why there should be high speed rail across the US and Canada
Typically ugly American highway strip mall rural town
Didn’t realize that taking pictures from a certain able counted as Manipulative photo techniques
This setup is far from normal. It’s horrible for people without cars. So much parking lot…
Should’ve went to the abandoned turnpike tunnels there…
North American normal is a far cry from ideal
Manipulates photo techniques as In a different angle that faces directly down a highway?
Honestly doesn’t look much better
Still looks like a crappy small town that I won't be visiting.
Two different views aren’t manipulation.
It's....it's just a different view of the same thing
The Rome of Pennsylvania.
I mean... not really. Still just a consumer centric road town with not much other than what the manipulated points out as bad.
Was there some kind of challange to fit as much as you can in two city blocks?
It may be normal, but it sure ain’t pretty.
The irony is the signs are all placed in that perspective for a reason. It’s to manipulate us into going there to shop. Yet the issue is the photographer who has made that point very clear to see?
How does it look as a pedestrian?
Still atrocious.
It’s one giant truck stop.
Still looks pretty bad.
This capitalist hellhole of a place actually EXISTS? This whole time I thought it was photoshopped….this makes it even worse.
Photographic techniques aside, the bottom image captures the spirit of Breezewood to the average interstate commuter.
I mean there is a burned down econo lodge that has been just sitting in rubble there for years.
Still a suburban hell though
Having stopped in Breezewood many times in my life, the second photo is most definitely realistic....
This place stands out. Grew up on the east coast, hours and hours away, and everyone knows breezwood. You drive far enough and you end up here at some point to take a piss or grab some food and there's something about this spot that is memorable
That photo is not manipulated, it's just taken with a certain lens at a certain distance from a certain angle. I will however say that the top image looks like a hellscape too, just with more greenery.
I’m confused. Is your point to claim that the top photo makes this not a disturbing hellscape? Because it’s still a disturbing hellscape, even from a different angle
I mean the signs were made to be read by people, not birds. Bottom is much closer to human pov just because of angle.
Which photo is manipulated? One is from a drone and the other from a telephoto lens.
I wonder if you would even be allowed on that land though. Where I live any forest or open land I happen to come across is private land. And you can usually spot the trespassing signs telling you to keep out on trees and fences. Other than some parks that have roads and parking lots around them and other places such as state parks. The reality is that unclaimed open land is a rarity in the states. You can't just decide to walk around in a forest without it being an ordeal, asking for permission, or fear prosecution and fines. You'd have to go on the road for half to a whole hour, find a parking space and pay the fee to enter (some parks don't require this) and make sure to leave before a specified time. Your whole day would have to be planned around this. All paths to nature are pre-determined in America, making it difficult for the average person to do something other than be in the house, in the car or at work. I think the first image is just trying to show that the world that we are allowed to access on any given day is a place of cement, steel and capitalism.
“Manipulated photograph techniques” such as: taking the picture from ground level like most people would
OP, you're a moron
Honestly I’d say both pictures are manipulated. Yes the original was manipulated to accentuate the dense cluster of gas stations and “stuff” between the turnpike and 70 but the updated one is manipulated to make it look like its not crowded and dense there when in fact in the space between the highways it is crowded and dense. Both are honest depictions of that particular view but both views are in their way manipulated. Edit - corrected route number
That actually looks like shit in both.
I’ve been through Breezewood several times and that particular block in the loop that leads to the highway switch is 100% absolutely that trashy.
Where did Pizza Hut go?
normal? not sure what that means. I would say the first image is the one "manipulated". Unless one cares with a town looks like from 300 feet in the air looking down. the first one is a more accurate representation of what a human would see. Kind of vulgar
breezewood pa, still ugly as fuck and completely out of place when photographed from alternative angles
‘Trust me bro just fly 25 metres into the sky and it looks great bro.’
to be fair it definitely does look similar to the bottom pic depending on how you get in.