Bridges by TJ



I have come to the conclusion that the bigger the bridge the harder it is to photograph. When the opportunity arose to take a work delivery up to Hull, the Humber Bridge was always going to be my "bridge" photo. What this topic has brought home to me is sometimes photographs can require a lot of planning. The Humber Bridge is a wonderful suspension bridge, the problem for me is that it is 200 miles from home. Therefore my window of opportunity was small as I could only spend about an hour getting my shot. I was therefore in the lap of the gods as far as the weather goes, and I was stuck with having to take a photo mid afternoon where as the lighting conditions at daybreak or sunset would have been better. Another problem was I wasn't really able to explore the local area to find the best places to take photos from, and so with hindsight it would probably have been easier to have stuck to a bridge closer to home and been able to really put more planning into the shot. So this was a big challenge, and in the short time I was there I got onto the bridge and onto the shoreline under the bridge too. For my chosen shot I was down on the beach by the bridge, and the sun came out for a few minutes and came a lovely glimmering effect on the water. Rather than zoom in on just the bridge I liked the "complete" effect I got with the photo; the beach in the forefront, the tiny boat  under the bridge, the light refection on the water and the wonderful backdrop of clouds. I would love to have another crack at this bridge as it is an amazing structure and with endless photographic potential.

For the other photos I tried a few different angles from the shoreline. The structure is so huge you would have to retreat some distance to get the whole bridge in the one shot, and the trade off for that would be losing some of the close up detail you get nearer to it. I did consider using a black and white photo for the main shot, but felt that in this instance it would been too "safe" an option. I've included one shot from the footpath where I was able to get an unusual shot of the bridge through some railings.