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Bridging the gap for Photography- Pentax User
Bridges are a feat of engineering. Spanning valleys, water, roads and other obstacles, they allow us to carry on our journey when a long detour would be the only other option. From the earliest designs to the great structures designed by the masters of engineering like Brunel, they not only serve a great purpose, but are also magnificent to look at. From the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and Sydney Harbour bridge in Australia, to our own Tower Bridge, Forth Road Bridge and even little Ashness Bridge in the Lake District. All stand as great monuments and grand structures, equal in presence to any equivalent building.
I have great affection for our many bridges, not only for the visual impact of the architectural design, which makes you wonder how on earth they don’t just simply collapse, but even remembering as a child how it was a big part of the journey, if there was a large bridge that we had to cross to get to our destination. Even now its impossible to resist putting your foot down as you approach that hump-backed bridge to get that weird tummy feeling, making even the smallest bridge fun to drive on, as well as beautiful to look at.
To photograph them well, they need to be studied with care. How do you view the bridge as a structure? Is it its sheer size that dominates or just the intricate design? Maybe it stands within a great location where the bridge just adds to the overall view. How is the bridge constructed? Is it a suspension design or is it solid concrete? What are its best features and how can you make the most of these? Does it have a strong graphic shape and therefore, will it work well as a simple silhouette against a fiery sunset? What time of day does the light make the most of its beauty? Is it late afternoon, at sunrise or perhaps after dark?
Taking these questions into consideration will help make the first decision on which lens to use. Perhaps you can’t get close up to it, so a telephoto lens will be the only option. The long end of the Pentax 50-200mm or 55-300mm zoom will be more than enough to fill the frame. If you can get access to the bridge up close from one bank or another then you can utilise its sheer size with a wide-angle lens, getting at a low angle to emphasise its grandeur. Here the wide end of an 18-55mm will be ideal. Use the strong lines of the bridge as it spans its obstacle to create sweeping lines that lead the eye into the picture and to the other side of the crossing. Many large bridges have purpose built viewing areas on one side to get a good view of the crossing. These are always good starting points for your first pictures. However, there may be a better, but less obvious places to take shots from and these viewpoints will give your pictures a unique composition. There may be a riverside path where you get a much lower viewpoint, or perhaps a slightly less accessible view is available from the opposite side. It’s worth studying a detailed map to find minor roads and pathways that may lead to these less obvious viewing places.
Just like any architecture, the age of the bridge will determine the approach you have in photographing it. If it’s an old bridge, then more softer lighting towards the beginning or end of the day will reveal its full potential, with warm sunlight revealing texture in the old stonework. Modern structures may also benefit this warm light, but as with all modern structures, these can stand the harsh light of midday for more graphic pictures.
Look out for abstracts in its design with your telephoto lens as well. Perhaps intricate ironwork, the soaring lines of the suspension cables or the composition that the supporting legs produce. If there is little colour in the bridge itself, think about how it will look with black and white film or converted to black and white on the computer later. This is when you can think about the shape of the bridge more and pick out those graphic details that will stand out in just the black and white tones.
If you have some filters at your disposal, then try adding these for different effects. A warm up filter will boost the warm light of a late afternoon sun, whilst a polariser will be great on a blue sky and abstract features on a modern structure. If you have no filters then switching to the ‘cloudy’ white balance setting on your digital will also warm the shot up.
Walk around the bridge and see if you can get access to underneath it? What about on the bridge itself? From here you can look up and see the design from a new angle. Can you use the traffic to your advantage? Fast moving cars and trucks can add a sense of drama to your shots, so stand somewhere safe, put the camera on a tripod and use a slow shutter speed of around 1/15 or 1/30 of a second to blur the fast moving vehicles. Anything slower than these shutter speeds and you might pick up camera shake from the vibrations on the bridge that the traffic is producing. Selecting ‘landscape’ exposure mode should give similar shutter speeds.
Once night falls, go back to revisit the bridge to see how it is transformed after dark. Even the most mundane looking bridge can come alive with a few lamps and tungsten bulbs. If the bridge stretches an expanse of water then this new colour will look great reflected in the water below. Even if you don’t get a perfect reflection of the bridge, any movement in the water will blur the lights, leaving an abstract of colour instead, which is equally appealing. As with most night shots, its better to shoot when there is still some colour left in the sky rather than wait for pitch-blackness. This will allow the bridge to stand out more, instead of disappearing into the night sky. Take a spot meter reading from an illuminated part of the bridge and bracket your exposures around that, checking the histogram on the LCD on the back of your camera for a good exposure. Choose night scene mode with an Optio compact and then use the exposure compensation setting to adjust around this.
Your chosen bridge doesn’t have to be a grand glamorous one. Your nearest footbridge can still have potential if you shoot it from the correct angle. Getting good shots is all about making the most of the bridges features, so head for that crossing and get creative.
© Craig Roberts
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