Being a perfectionist is a slippery slope, in my beginning photography years I would sometimes misread the technical side of exposure and or film development. Other times more skilled photographers would point out compositional elements that could be improved upon. This would lead to returning to a location to fine tune any or all of the aforementioned flaws.Almost always the scene would not be the same which naturally lead to frustration and a sense of failure to simply not get it right the first time. For someone who made his living being paid for a task once, and only once, it became obvious to slow down, think it through and don’t second guess myself. That doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes prefer another photographers impression of an area better than mine, but I am comfortable with carrying off what was in my heart and mind at the time.

   As a result, I have lived by the mantra, “get it right the first time”, because if you return for a “do-over” it will will not be the same, and never as you remembered the scene. Such is the case with this month’s Story Behind Every Photograph as seen in the accompanying color image below. To be clear, at least in my mind this month’s image is exactly as I’d hoped, compositionally and in the tonal relationships. The narrow and important band of light from the opening in the roadway above directly leads to an added bonus that likely doesn’t come through on a computer screen. The sunlight bouncing around the receding arches simply glows as though they were on fire! That glow translates to creating a depth and dimensionality in the original silver gelatin print that’s never easy to capture. Frankly, digital capture and inkjet prints simply cannot portray those small subletities like film and a wet-processed silver print.

    The actual origin of this image came about because of good friend Marie Curtis, a working professional photographer and excellent Large Format photographer herself. The Charter Oak Bridge in East Hartford, CT was still under construction and not yet open to traffic. Knowing of my affinity for the geometry of bridges she recognized the potential and told me to check it out. In the spring of 1991, both Marie and I made our way over to the East Hartford side of the new bridge. Rt 2 is a divided 4-lane highway and passes underneath the new bridge. I parked on the shoulder of the highway with cars whizzing by @ 60 mph (a choice I would not make 30 years later).  Once I was over the highway guard rails the embankment was quite steep and forced me to keep my wits about setting up the camera and tripod together with simply maintaining a foot hold.

    I tend not to favor “what something is” rather closer versions where the focus is on relationships within the compositions, many times leaving the viewer to simply imagine what the image is in reality. I was drawn to the strong symmetry of the concrete uprights and the graceful shapes of something so incredibly powerful.  Choosing to portray the image in a more full range of contrast allowed the sun entering the uprights at a 90 degree angle to create a glow that wasn’t fully appreciated at the time of exposure. That light is accentuated in the final print due to the darker tonalities throughout the image. A full range of contrast will always subliminally portray a scene with a greater sense of depth. Highlights and shadows are the main tools a photographer uses to create interest and shape. When they are joined by receding spatial relationships combined with curves and angles something wonderfully dimensional can turn a piece of flat art…almost life-like !! 

   As with so many things in life, Never say Never, not long ago I wrote another Blog about returning to the same location with a different format camera, the return turned magical because of heavy rains leading up to my return, checkout that Back Story linked here.