Aurora Bridgealis

I first got the idea of shooting the Aurora Bridge as Kyra and I were heading to the gym at our usual 6:30 AM on New Year's Eve.  Our gym is located right next to/beneath the bridge and as we turned from Fremont onto 36th I glanced out the windshield and really liked the way the bridge looked with the blue sky, girders and lights. Something about it inspired me and I wanted to capture that feeling "on film".

Around the New Year we had an inversion in Seattle which led to clear skies and pollution in the lower atmosphere.  These two phenomenon created very colorful and long lasting sunrises and sunsets. I knew that the inversion would be short lived, and I had plans already for New Year's Day so I found myself hoping that the pollution would stick around for a few more days and give me time to shoot it (sorry).

Jack and I went skiing at Mt. Baker on New Year's Day and the sunset on the drive home was absolutely astonishing and felt like it lasted for an eternity.  The sky was cast in very deep tones of orange, red, purple and blue.  I am kicking myself to this day, and will for a long time for not pulling over and taking pictures (wives and babies be damned!). I was excited and couldn't wait to scope out / take the bridge shot the next day (Anecdotally, the N.Y.D sunset gave me an idea for a few specific silhouette shots. I have tried a few, but the sky hasn't behaved lately).

Look! Snow!
Photo Credit Jack Nichols
http://www.jmongol.com/

On Saturday (the 2nd),  Kyra was nice enough to drive around the Fremont/Nickerson area for a while and help me find the droids view I was looking for. This turned out to be rather difficult as I couldn't find a spot without the Fremont Bridge in the frame.  While that may be interesting for a future picture, it is not what I wanted for this one.  We spent nearly an hour driving up and down along the Ship Canal looking for just the right spot.  I eventually ended up under the Fremont Bridge and decided I might as well take a minute or two to check out the view from the bridge deck.  Bingo, there it

Not the view I was looking for (Google Street View)

Shooting off the Fremont Bridge presents a unique set of challenges. First, the Fremont Bridge is the busiest (read most opened) drawbridge in the United States. I knew that to get the shot could take up to half an hour if not longer if you include setup time, waiting for the light, taking the picture, and tear down.  A bridge opening would really throw the whole thing off.  This was complicated even more so by the fact that to get the framing I wanted, I would literally be straddling the center of the bridge.  The second challenge was dealing with vibration. The bridge deck is made of expanded steel, most likely to reduce weight. During my scouting trip I noticed that every time a car drove by, the whole bridge would shake.  Even bicycles and joggers would cause vibrations as they neared the center of the bridge. I was going to be shooting in low-light conditions which meant I may need long exposures.  All this meant that I would need to do an early morning shot when traffic would be at it's lowest.

Aurora (George Washington Memorial) Bridge from the Fremont Bridge
Notice the flimsy bridge deck (Google Street View)

After coming to the realization that I would have to wait until the next morning, I began looking for a project for the afternoon.  While trying to find my way out from under the Fremont Bridge I ended up under the Aurora Bridge (if you know the area you know what I am talking about).  Looking for a place to turn around I noticed that the final support structure formed a picture window with a unique view of the canal, Queen Anne, and Rainier (a.k.a. "The Mountain".  The best part about this location is that it was in an out of the way location with no traffic. This was exactly what I had been hoping for.  I decided that I would come later in the day to take the "Framed" shot, then wake up really early to get set up on the Fremont Bridge and take the "Aurora Bridgealis" shot.

The setting of "Framed".  The building to the right is the Adobe offices
(Google Street view)

Framed

"Framed" was fun to shoot and a challenge to get it how I wanted.  This is actually a stack of three exposures.  All three were shot at f/11 ISO 100 (FYI, I generally shoot at ISO 100 unless I have a specific reason to up it).  I picked f/11 because I wanted a greater depth of field (the bridge was pretty close) and I wanted a slightly longer exposure time to smooth out the water a bit.

"Framed"

1. The first shot was exposed for the sky which was so bright, even at this late hour, and a 1.3 second exposure that everything other than the sky and mountain came out black.
2. The second exposure was the "base" exposure and served as the general shot for the buildings and bridge (2.5 seconds)
3. The third exposure (5 seconds) was to pick up some highlights and more detail in the bridge.

I tried playing around with some "automated" Photoshop blending tools such as luminosity masks and blend modes, but none of them really did the trick so I ended up using layer masks and manually blending to get the look I wanted.

What I like:

• Obviously, I like the way the bridge creates a natural frame
• I also really like the colors in the foreground and mid-ground, specifically the houses
• I like the park benches, they just set a relaxed scene as if to say "stay a while".
• I like the way that everything draws your eye to the mountain
• Finally, I like the way that this doesn't look like Seattle, well at least like typical Seattle.  No skyscrapers, no city views.  it looks like a portal into a fishing village somewhere

What I don't like:

• My biggest complaint is the sky. The sunset was a bit bleh compared to the ones previous. I waited around for a while to see if I could get an interesting blue hour. . .nope.  So, I may try to reshoot if the weather ever clears up and we start getting pretty/colorful sunsets

Aurora Bridgealis

The "Aurora Bridgealis" shot was taken the next morning (Sunday). I got there around 5:30 AM to get set-up and waited for the light.  This is a  panorama comprised of six frames taken in with the camera in portrait mode.  The panorama was stitched together in Lightroom instead of the camera so that I could shoot in RAW and maintain control over the white balance and other settings.

"Aurora Bridgealis"

This is a blend of three different exposures at f/4.0 ISO 100. The shortest exposure was about 1/6 second and the longest was only 2 seconds.  I tried narrowing the aperture to smooth out the water, but I didn't get enough time without something driving, running, or biking over the bridge causing camera shake.  With the 2 second exposures I had enough time to shoot, pan camera, shoot again, then wait for car(s) or jogger(s) or biker(s) to pass, let everything settle again then shoot, pan shoot.

I really like this picture.  It is actually one of my favorites (a yet to be posted one is pretty close, if not slightly higher).  While part of me wishes I had stuck around a little longer so it would be lighter and I could get more detail out of the foreground, I think I prefer the dark, sleepy look.  To me it portrays a still, sleeping world about to wake up.

I really wish that the water would have behaved which would have allowed me to get a great reflection of the bridge off the canal like what you see on the left side of the canal where the water is protected by the bumpers.  However, that's not something I have control over. I'm not even sure that the canal water is ever still.

What's Next?

1. My next blog post is in the works. . .it should be the conclusion of the Rokinon 14mm challenge I undertook earlier.
2. I (think) I set up a mailing list.  It should be one of the widgets to the right.  Sign up if you want me to let you know when I have new blog posts or RELEVANT updates. I won't spam you I promise. If anything I'll send too few emails because it's just me running everything.
3. I am also trying to figure out how to integrate social media into the blog post.  For now this means nothing, but hopefully sometime soon you will be able to like me on FB or follow me on twitter through the blog. 
4. I am trying to set up a gallery section of the web page so you can go straight to viewing photos instead of having to read walls of text to see pretty things (don't worry, I'll still provide walls of text for those who want to read it).
5. Finally, a handful of people have asked for prints.  I'm more than willing to provide you with prints, just email me or make a comment below.  For now I'm using Bayphoto.com so you can scour that website for what you want (size, type, etc.) and tacking on a very modest photo fee.  I'm trying to figure out a more convenient way to deliver prints but it's difficult.