Onegav

Tonight I thought it was time for another long exposure, and so blindly I got into my car and just headed off into the night. Its been raining a lot today, so I wanted to use the wet tarmac in the image somehow, and capture the light reflecting off it.

I drove around for quite a while, investigating puddles and bridges, curves in the road and interesting road side structures. After drawing a blank at every turn, eventually I had an idea to travel a few miles away and photograph a swing bridge, over in nearby Bartington.

What made me think of it was firstly that the bridge is cool, but also the road curves in a big S shape at that point in the road.

So, when I arrived, I had a good look around for the best angle, and once I had my spot sorted it was just a case of waiting for the right traffic to pass and shine lights all over the scene. I positioned myself perfectly head on to the bridge, and framed it dead center. Not something that works everytime, however, with a heavy “weight” of light in the lower right hand corner, balanced by the solutary bright street light in the top left corner, I think the composition works.

I really like the way the car lights streak off in a big curve too.

Nothing complicated tonight, just a single exposure, no filters needed as I wanted to capture the glare, just a nice and simple long exposure.

Learnings – tonight took me back to the early days of this challenge, where I would often drive seemingly aimlessly looking for something to photograph. However, quite differently to those early days, now I don’t have any fear, trepidation or even a concern, of taking photographs in the dark of the night. Infact, at times it opens up entirely new perspectives, indeed this image wouldn’t work at all in the day, the background would just be way to busy.