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Bridges Day - 2004 - My Story
G. Donald Bain 2004-Sep-22 05:57:00
I was out on a field trip all weekend, and had a great time camping
with my college students in the Cascade volcanoes of northeastern
California. But no bridges! I planned to stop in Redding on the way
back to shoot Santiago Calatrava's new Sundial Bridge over the
Sacramento River , but when we got there it was raining hard and
getting dark.
So my wife and I took an entire day off today to shoot bridges.
We started in Berkeley, with a new pedestrian bridge over Interstate
Highway 80, a graceful arch that connects the town with the shore of
San Francisco Bay. Quite exciting, with 10 lanes of traffic roaring
underneath.
Then over the Bay Bridge to Treasure Island. This island was man-made
in the 1930's to house the 1939 World's Fair, but immediately became a
Navy base. Now it is once again open to the public, and offers
incredible views from the middle of San Francisco Bay. I shot three
bridges from there: the San Francisco half of the Bay Bridge, a superb
double suspension bridge; the incomparable Golden Gate Bridge; and the
Oakland half of the Bay Bridge, an unglamorous cantilever span damaged
in an earthquake and now being replaced.
I wanted to get a closer view of the Bay Bridge from Yerba Buena
Island. This is the high island that the Bay Bridge goes right through
in a tunnel. But it belongs to the Coast Guard, and after talking to
the sentry at the gate, I decided not to risk trouble by photographing
from there.
Next we continued on the Bay Bridge to San Francisco, to the Third
Street Bridge over China Basin. This is a grand old monstrosity of a
bascule bridge, right next to the new baseball stadium. It's where
revolutionaries kidnapped the mayor in Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry
movie "The Enforcer".
After that we drove through Golden Gate Park, where we had hot dogs for
lunch, then visited the Japanese Tea Garden. This famous garden is
considered one of the best Japanese style gardens outside Japan, and
dates from 1915. I photographed the high-arched half moon bridge, and a
granite slab bridge, both in one pano.
We decided to make a loop to come home, so proceeded north over the
Golden Gate Bridge. I took the standard postcard view from the Marin
viewpoint, along with throngs of people from all over the world.
From Marin county we re-crossed the bay to the east side on the
Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, an ungainly roller-coaster of a cantilever
span, with two peaks and a dip between. To photograph it we explored
north through a gantlet of no trespassing signs, between a naval fuel
depot and the huge Chevron refinery and chemical plant. It was several
miles north that I finally found the first legal spot to shoot from.
The bridge was by then a long way off, but East Brother Island, with a
lighthouse on it, was close by.
Determined to shoot as many bridges as possible, we drove east on I-80
to Carquinez Strait, and walked out to the middle of the new Al Zampa
Memorial Bridge. It was named for an ironworker who had worked on
several of the great bridges of the Bay Area.
A long and tiring day, but I had managed to "panoramize" eight very
different bridges. We had dinner at the "Dead Fish" restaurant in
Valona, very nice despite it's name. From our window table overlooking
Carquinez Strait we watched the sun set and night fall on the Zampa
Bridge.
Now I've got some stitching to do!
Don