After some thought about bridges in general I chose to go to the bridges that cross the Brandywine Creek into Wilmington. The two I chose to work were the I95 Bridge and the North Washington Street Bridge. Again, trying something different I went under the bridges and chose to take my photographs of the structure of the bridge. The primary issue I faced was keeping it clear that I was shooting a bridge. If the judges can not get that concept immediately in the very short time they have to view the photograph the scores may be low. In other words it had to be obvious that it was a bridge.
In order to get the shots I used a wide angle lens, in this case the Nikkor AF-S 10-24mm DX lens on a Nikon D300. I did try to use a fill flash but was too far way from my subject to make the flash effective so the images took some post processing working the shadows and highlights to bring out the detail of the structure without blowing out the highlights. I also wanted very much to bring out the color of the underlying structure of the bridge to give the photo some life. The efforts were successful. The three photos below were all accepted by the judges - the first for the for projected competition and the last 2 for the print competition.
Projected Image Competition:
Under the Bridge
Print Competition:
Over the River Looking up
Support your local Bridge
Ed Ford
