The Andy Aupperlee Explosion 5000

The George Washington Memorial Bridge is not in this picture. My camera, a Nikon D300, is hanging over the edge of the aforementioned structure, better known as the Aurora Bridge. I bolted the camera to a tripod, tilted it against the rail, and extended the center post so that the camera hovered some 160 feet above the ground. With a remote shutter release clenched tightly in my fist, I fired off frame after frame. The result is the latest addition to my “Scene from 99” series. In this entry, I captured the George Washington Memorial Bridge from the air (above), land and sea (below).

“Scene from 99” is an ongoing series exclusive to the Andy Aupperlee Explosion 5000 that features images and commentary about Seattle’s iconic Highway 99.

Air.

The view is of Fremont and the Fremont Bridge. Ballard and the Olympic Mountains are in the background near the horizon. I took this picture from the sidewalk on the west side of the George Washington Memorial Bridge. Six lanes of traffic buzzed by behind me while I monkeyed with camera settings and tripod adjustments.

To capture “Fremont Lights,” I rigged up my Nikon D300 with the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. After removing the UV filter, I screwed on the 77mm Cokin P system adapter. I stacked two neutral density gradient filters (the Cokin 120 ND Grad and Lee 0.9 ND Grad) into the holder. With the lens zoomed into 16mm to prevent vignetting, I lined up the transition points of the filters with the horizon. The goal was to capture streaking traffic by using extra long exposures and not blow out the sky. With two ND grad filters darkening the sky, I was able to balance the image so both the city lights and sunset exposed properly in the same frame. We see this kind of dynamic range with our eyes, but cameras are very limited. Once I had the filters setup, I dialed in ISO 200 and chose f/8 in manual mode. I tried a number of different shutter speeds, and the 10 second exposure featured here worked best.

Using the same filter setup, I made this photo of a street sign near me on the bridge. The ND grad filters allowed me to expose for the bright moon and relatively dark sign in the same frame.

Unfortunately, the George Washington Memorial Bridge is often the venue of choice for suicidal Seattleites. Jumpers frequently shutdown traffic and give business owners under the bridge a reason to look up. The Lake Washington Ship Canal is relatively narrow, and most of the area beneath the bridge is land. Sadly, not everyone can judge exactly where the water is. Suicides are frequent enough that Seattle has installed phones and posted help-line phone numbers along the sidewalks. While it is a good faith effort to help those at the brink, some still decide to take the plunge. A multi-million dollar, 8-foot fence is Seattle’s latest proposal for keeping anyone from going over the edge. In 1996, The Seattle PI wrote an interesting article about those who have survived the jump. You can read it here.

Land.

Several nights before I made the “air” images, I walked underneath the massive cantilever and truss bridge. Opened in 1932, the 2,945 foot long structure is an engineering marvel. Looking at it from the ground offers an impressive perspective.

For this shot, I again used the Nikon D300 and Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. I dialed in ISO 200 and f/8, and then selected ‘bulb’ for the shutter speed. I manually timed the exposure by pressing and releasing the shutter on a remote trigger. This particular shot uses a shutter opening of 39 seconds. Taken just steps from the Burke-Gillman trail, the shot looks east across Lake Union towards the Eastlake neighborhood. The towering bridge overhead eventually terminates to the south on Queen Anne hill.

Sea.

On Monday I shot the bridge from the land. On Wednesday I shot it from the air (sort of), and on Thursday I shot it from the sea.

I just happened to be enjoying cocktails and conversation on a 130 foot yacht, slowly cruising Lake Union, when Seattle staged a glorious sunset. My D300 and 35mm f/1.8 were around my neck when Lyn, a colleague from my company, suggested I get a few shots of the vista. This image is looking west, with Queen Anne to the south (left) and Fremont to the north (right). Unlike any of the photos from Monday or Tuesday, this shot nearly encompasses the entire span of the bridge.

For more information on the George Washington Memorial Bridge, visit Wikipedia and HistoryLink.org. A complete listing off all the gear I used for these photos can be found on my gear page. Check out my “Scene from 99” tag for other Aurora related photos and commentary, or watch a Flickr slideshow below.