Clifton Bridge | Weekly Photo #115

Last year, I spent a long weekend with my family and close friends in Bristol which, for those not familiar with where that is, it’s a city in the southwest of England. Although it was a family trip, I did manage to sneak out with the “proper camera” a couple of times, one being to photograph the famous Clifton Suspension Bridge. Being a spur of the moment decision to head out, leaving no time to plan, this Grade I listed building, a symbol of Bristol often seen on postcards was an obvious choice.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 20mm | 8 Seconds | f/10 | ISO200

Once parked and on location, I hunted around for a good vantage point and eventually went with this one here which places the Clifton Tower on the left-hand third with the bridge deck heading off into the distance across the Avon Gorge. With what would end up as the best light fast approaching, I hastily set up my tripod and camera and carefully lined up my composition. With so much dynamic range between the bright cloudless sky on the horizon and the dark shadows down the gorge, I needed to bracket the exposures to make sure I captured as much detail as possible, which I could then blend together later in post.

As I stood there firing off the shutter, it dawned on me that nothing was crossing the bridge. Not one car or pedestrian had crossed in the 10 or so minutes I’d been standing there. It turns out I had picked the perfect time to photograph the bridge free of vehicle and foot traffic as it was closed for routine maintenance. What a stroke of luck!

Although the final photo looked ok, there’s actually a lot more going un under the hood. Not only is this a bracketed exposure blend, but it’s also a time blend, as after I’d merged the 3 bracketed exposures together and finished up with the edit, the photo was still looking a bit flat and to my eyes, was missing a finishing touch. That’s where the time blend comes in.

Back on location and not long after I took the three bracketed photos, the light levels dipped and the streetlights on the bridge turned on. During this time I had continued to shoot, keeping the camera in the exact same spot meaning I could seamlessly blend the lights into the bracketed exposure I took a few minutes before which worked really well and injected a touch of much-needed life into the final image.

During this trip to Bristol, I made one other trip out with the camera and paid an early morning visit to Burnham-on-Sea to photograph the well-known lighthouse on the beach. Although the tide was out, I had some beautiful sunrise conditions with some pastel magenta colours in the sky. I’ll be posting that photo here very soon.

Until next week.

Trevor

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This post is featured in my Weekly Photo series where I post a new photo every Monday. To have this delivered directly to your inbox, you can subscribe to the mailing list here.