The bridge

Southport has an extravagant road bridge across its marine lake. It's much photographed owing to it's striking design. I've made attempts at photographing it myself and end up making the same shots as everyone else from unusual angles. I've come to realise that the more interesting pictures I have of it are those where it appears incidentally. Sometimes this has been unintentionally, but more recently it has been a deliberate inclusion.

Today I had to visit the town to do some shopping and I had some free time. The sun shone and I wandered around the sea front and the marine lake, where the gardens are being renovated.

These are a few shots including the bridge. The first two relate to the renovation work and the bridge is incidental.

The third also documents the work on a footbridge and includes the 'iconic' bridge for its graphic quality working with the flattening of both bridges and pier by the short telephoto lens.

The final picture is just a hackneyed reflection of the bridge in the window of an un-let building.

If I hadn't wandered aimlessly into the area being redeveloped I could have made a photo-essay from more photographs like the ones I took today, but I wasn't thinking that way for some reason. I had hoped to get some shots at the beach but, hardly surprisngly on an October weekday, it was pretty much deserted save for a ranger picking up litter.

Once more I was struck by how you can see a picture in a place you have been many times before - as with this one taken from the pier. Being all about patterns it works best in black and white.

---