John Pfahl lives near the Bethlehem plant in Lackawanna, New York. He described his experience photographing at the site: “Simultaneously attracted and repelled, I feel myself engulfed in a truly awesome spectacle of nature. It is like suddenly being hurled into a roaring cataract, an erupting volcano, or a violent storm at sea. Alarm whistles blow and smoke discharges into the sky, expanding and changing form far more rapidly than I can imagine possible, and, at its absolute zenith, dissipating into thin air before I can take another breath. The presentation has its own geyser-like rhythms and rationale, and fifteen to twenty minutes pass before another discharge takes place. Doubtless the efficiencies of the internal workings of the mill dictate a logic for the timings, but from my removed vantage point I can only see them as part of an irrational process, terrifying in its capriciousness. I wait again for what seems an interminable time, and just when I impatiently fear that the workmen have closed down the line ending the show for the day, the whole process suddenly starts over again. New colors, shapes, and textures arise from other stacks in different hallucinatory combinations.”