Cliffside Bridge Painting

“It’s raining, are we still going out tonight?” That question was asked many times during the day. As it turned out, the rain stopped about an hour before the bridge shoot. The shoot was a go! Walking up to the bridge, a few of us remarked how nice it was to be on the carriage roads that evening. Given the earlier rain we wouldn’t have considered going out that evening, if not for the bridge shoot. We arrived early in preparation to climb under the bridge and down the cliff during daylight. The project continues to grow with three new bridge painter joining us. Everyone was comfortably in place well before dusk, then we waited …

The before shot.

After a couple of shots we quickly realized how ginormous this bridge is. We needed more light, we could have used a few more light painters. Brenda knew what to do, “everyone gets two lights” and she passed out more strobe flashes and flashlights to folks. Now with double-fisted lights we were able to create this incredibly magical image.

 

Cliffside Bridge Light Painting Acadia National Park

Just as we were wrapping up the last shot, we heard a voice from the bridge above asking, “Which way to Jordan Pond?” Our first thought was, “What does this fellow think we’re up to, under the bridge – illuminating the bridge with flashlights.” After letting that thought pass, we determined that he got lost running. We offered to lead him to Jordan Pond when we were finished. I never heard the final part of the story, but I think someone offered Jim a ride back to his car near Eagle Lake.

The group shot under the barrel against the cliff.

Brenda baked Congo Bars, enjoyed by all (including the lost runner, Jim). We had a double raffle: Kevin won the Jordan Pond Dam Bridge print and Tom won the Little Harbor Brook Bridge print.

Recon-Recon Mission

Brenda and I invited Tom and Marguerite out for an early morning boat ride. Tom and Marguerite met us at 8:30 and we decided to skip the boat due to strong winds that could lead to heavy seas. I suggested we go out and see how the seas were, but everyone else knew better and persuaded me to try again on Sunday. While we were all sitting on the porch, we started discussing the next bridge to shoot and how I wanted to do a ‘reconnaissance mission’ for the recon-mission. Brenda thought I was out of my mind, but my trusty photography friend Tom completely understood. I wanted to know what equipment I would need to assist taking the shot and be prepared with the equipment when we did the recon-mission.

After a quick change into our hiking gear and photo bag packed (with various tools including gaffers tape), we started out on our recon-recon mission. We were headed for Little Harbor Brook Bridge with a stop-over at Cliffside Bridge to see what was involved in shooting that bridge – heck, it was on the way!

We spent a fair bit of time at Cliffside Bridge and finally settled on a shooting location, best way down to the bridge, lighting locations and some ideas about safety concerns. Here’s the shot from the location.We wanted to be sure and include the weep hole and the cliff under the bridge in the picture.

We continued to Little harbor Brook Bridge, keeping in mind our ‘hard-turn-around-time’ of 11:50. After looking at some pictures online, I knew what shot I envisioned. I was hoping for a high shoot at an angle to capture both walls with the ends offset. To get that shot my tripod needed to be higher. I broke out the gaffers tape and proceeded to tape our Leki hiking sticks to the tripod legs. It worked as a proof of concept and the image is very close to what I envisioned. After reviewing the image and the scene in front of us, we identified a number of locations requiring lighting. Though this is a small bridge, there are some complex lighting challenges. As a bonus the date stone is visible too.

We took the Asticou Trail back, which turned out to be a nice hike and quicker than the carriage road. We realized that in the future, maybe we could recon two bridges in one day and we didn’t have to do it during dusk, now that we understand how to light a bridge.