I continue to work through the raw files from the trip to Zion NP. A lot of photographs! Today I’m posting a shot from our second day in the park, a photo of Pine Creek Bridge. It’s a beautiful stone structure and I was able to get down into the creek itself to photograph the bridge against the backdrop of the canyon wall. Water flow in the creek is very low at this time of the year, enabling me to get a shot I wouldn’t get in springtime.
According to the Historic American Engineering Record, ”Built of native sandstone and ashlar masonry, and designed to complement its natural surroundings, this bridge is a superb example of ”National Park Service-Rustic” stone bridge engineering. It is unaltered and retains structural integrity. The Pine Creek Bridge is significant for its association with the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway, constructed by the National Park Service and Bureau of Public Roads in 1927-30. The highway is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is considered significant in the contexts of tourism and engineering. The bridge is an integral and necessary component of the highway, and is also significant for its rustic style, designed to harmonize with the local setting.”-Courtesy of http://www.bridgemapper.com
Following is a description of how I prepared this photo; if you’re not interested in that stuff, it’s time to stop reading.
This shot presented the usual challenges found in a deep canyon, extremes of light and shadow. The upper canyon wall was brightly illuminated and the arch of the bridge was very shadowy. A conventional photograph would not have the dynamic range to display the bridge the way I wanted. I chose to take three different exposures of the same scene, one underexposed by 1 f-stop, one overexposed by 1 f-stop and a third with no exposure bias. I used Photoshop to blend the three images, creating the high dynamic range image you see here. I didn’t like the way the sky turned out so I subsequently overlaid the HDR image on the underexposed photo, then applied a layer mask to all but the sky on the HDR image to allow the sky on the underlying image to show through. A mask is a more precise way of erasing part of a layer (in this case the sky) to allow that part of an underlying layer to show through.
Peter this was a complex task and you have achieved a great balance
Great work Pete. Really highlights for me the engineering that must have gone into the construction of the bridge and the harmony achieved with its surroundings!