VARIATIONS ON A BRIDGE

This is the photo used in The Guardian When Gary MacDougall, my managing editor, assigned me to shoot the Confederation Bridge for the special edition I really had no idea how to approach it. We wanted an image that would show the massive structure of the bridge and also the fact it is an attractive structure. I had photographed the bridge for The Guardian's fifth anniversary edition so I had an idea of the various angles that were available and also on the New Brunswick side it is possible to get right down under it. It is not possible to photograph the whole bridge and still have a large image because it spans such a distance. We had thought of possibly going out in a lobster boat, but again a photo of the whole bridge from water level would be too small. I had been under the bridge before in a boat photographing it and I knew that angle would not work for us. I have always been a big fan of long telephoto lenses and really like the way they compress and make an image larger so I knew that was what I would use to make the image. I realized I would need at least a 300 mm for the kind of photo we needed for the front page, but even that was not long enough so I had to use a teleconverter for a focal length of more than 600 mm. The image was made at Cape Jourinmain, N.B. near the wildlife area because in all honesty there are not really good angles on the Prince Edward Island side. Plus I liked the fact that when you are looking at the photo you are looking toward home. I also drove down to Cape Tormentine, but that was too far from the bridge so there was no image there. But it was certainly strange to be back at the place where many Islanders spent quite a few hours of their lives waiting for the ferry to take them home. The former terminal parking lot is now a summer trailer park and the gas station just outside the terminal area is gone and replaced with a small restaurant. It felt really strange to look out over the Northumberland Strait and not see the Abbey or one of the other ferries heading to the dock. Check out the various angles on the bridge and let me know what you like.