Sundial Spire at Night

by Mike Lee

Title

Sundial Spire at Night

Artist

Mike Lee

Medium

Photograph - Digital

Description

This image captures the tall tapered pylon of the Sundial Bridge in Redding California USA at night. I liked the way the spotlight on the left of the frame mirrored the cables that suspend the bridge deck from the pylon. There were some patchy clouds overhead so I shot multiple 10 second exposures from the same camera position and blended them in post production. This gave the effect of an exposure of over a minute in length on the clouds, making them more wispy in appearance while allowing me to keep the visible stars from starting to “trail” as they would have in a single long exposure. On this evening the bridge deck was illuminated with very blue light so I processed the image with a “cool” white balance to accentuate the already prevalent blue tones.

The Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay is for pedestrian traffic and was designed by Spanish Architect and structural engineer Santiago Calatrava Valls who’s known for bridge designs featuring prominent single leaning pylons such as the one in this image. The 210 foot mast here, which points due north and leans 42 degrees forms an actual sundial gnomon and the hours of the day, calibrated to the summer solstice in Pacific Daylight Time, are marked on the ground on the northern shore of the Sacramento River which it spans. The span of the bridge of some 700 feet has no structural members touching the water, which was a design requirement due to concerns about anadromous fish migrations and salmon spawning grounds in the river below.

Uploaded

February 2nd, 2022

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