Bridge to the ballpark

With baseball season kicking off here, they've just completed a new footbridge to get people to the ballpark in San Diego - over the busy Harbor Drive, and the railroad and trolley tracks.

The design of the suspension bridge is meant to represent a sail - in tribute to San Diego's nautical heritage.

It took a whole year longer than planned to complete, and cost a whole $hit-load of tax payers money - but it does look rather splendid.

Here are some shots from today - Canon 5D2 - 17-35 f2.8L:











It offers killer views of downtown as well





I will be returning another time, at dusk!

 

I wondered at first how you managed to find angles that made the bridge so dramatic. Then I realised it's been built all helter skeltery. Really like the 1st and 2nd from last shots.

 

Nice to see how you shot this, Chris. Well done!

Here are a few of mine, from the same day, shot with a 5DMkII and either the TS-E 17mm or the 24-70mm f2.8

San Diego East Village by Chimay Bleue, on Flickr

Harbor Drive Pedestrian Bridge by Chimay Bleue, on Flickr

San Diego's PETCO Park by Chimay Bleue, on Flickr

 

Wow, what a bridge. To (mis)quote Paul Hogan, "He must have been p***** when he done that one"! But shot number one is my favourite. B&W really suits this sort of architectural shot.

 

Nice shots guys
Welcome to the forum Darren!

 

WOW awesome photos Chris & Darren (fab name by the way)

what a impressive yet slightly strange looking bridge.........!!

Daz

 

Darren (UK) you have a US version (Darren US) who's also a Canonian - must be related LOL

Darren (US) - glad you made it to the forum, and good to meet you yesterday.

We ran into each other on top of the Hilton parking structure, both clutching 5D2s, and both with the same idea of shooting the same bridge!

Looking forward to seeing Darren (US) post some of his rather stunning architectural shots here

 

my heart just skipped a beat i thought you was inviting me over the pond until i spotted the (US) bit..............lol

 

Thanks, guys! And always nice to meet another Darren, too. I'll post a few photos soon.

 

Was in the area, so went back for a few evening shots...

 

Ah, very nice - love the contrast between the light colour of the bridge, and the rest of the scene.

I see you got a plane landing as well!

2nd shot isn't showing up for me at the moment for some reason?

 

oooo ... thats rather perdy mate ... i have absolutely no negative comment about it at all

 

is it possible with this sort of thing to take a second shot at a fairly quick shutter speed to freeze some cars in the street ... then overlylay it on top... just to add a bit more interest into the road ...
i suppose that is a negative comment now isnt it ...
just wondering how easy it would be to do ... .... ....

 

Should be do-able with say a higher ISO

I'd rather do a long exposure with light trails if you wanted street activity - more of a feeling of movement and time passing

Doesn't look like there was anyone around in shot#1 - but you can see a plane landing as a light rail, top right side

 

shot #2 looks ace on Flickr - no idea why it won't show up on here though

 

Strange it won't show up. It does when I look at it here on the forum. I get both shots.

As for activity on the streets, it was DEAD last night. I waited around for many shots to try to get a lot of traffic flow there but to no avail; there were no cars around at all. Oh well, always something to improve for next time.

 

I don't think it needs cars to be fair ... I'm really just interested to know if you could get cars in the shot; stationary and streaky lights AND retain such nice exposure? With multiple exposures ...

 

OK, let me try again for the second shot, since it's my favorite and now it's not working for me, either.

 

Oh, and to answer your question, Hamish, I'd say that the only way to add moving cars at night without just photoshopping them in (which would be cheating for me) would be to shot at very high ISO and try to manage the noise in PP afterwards. I ran into just this problem when I was shooting a house we rented in St. Lucia last summer. I took one shot that was long exposure, but I didn't like it as much because of the blur of the swaying palm trees:



So I took another shot at high shutter speed (and subsequently high ISO) that froze the trees and I liked it much better:

 

2nd shot working on that 2nd post - love the lighting under the bridge