PHOTOGRAPHER: Jennifer T. Alcott
SUBMITTED BY: Capital Rail Constructors, a Clark-Kiewit Joint Venture, Herndon, Va.

As workers on the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project Silver Line Phase 2 project set the bottom half of the form for one of the aerial guideway straddle bents at Dulles International Airport, Jennifer T. Alcott captured the immense effort. Alcott, construction communications manager for Capital Rail Constructors—a Clark and Kiewit joint venture—said the work was performed overnight to reduce traffic impacts because the structure spans the primary outbound road from Dulles and required a highway detour.

The job required a 300-ton crane, multiple pieces of support equipment and superior coordination to finish by daylight. “The challenge was finding a position from which the terminal, the flag and the work could be seen while avoiding too much glare from the light plants,” she says. After scouting several locations, Alcott snapped this shot just after midnight. She says, “When I reviewed the photos, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the photo not only captures the magnitude of the work, it also captures the precision ‘hand work’ and teamwork required for setting the massive forms.” That teamwork included crew members holding tag lines and workers waiting in lifts to adjust the position of the form as the crane lowers it onto the columns. She was also pleased to catch, in the lower center of the photo, the general superintendent who was overseeing the operation.

Alcott took the photo with a Canon Rebel T5 and used the EF-S 18-55mm IS II standard zoom lens.