Blue Bridge...

Once the scene of Oregon's record high-speed car chase at just over an incredible 150 MPH, the Astoria Bridge to Washington is long, straight and impossibly narrow. I have no height or bridge phobia but having to cross this one always makes me sit up and pay extra close attention. Returning home from a shoot in Illwaco, WA early Friday evening, I thought it might be nice to get some shots of the bridge in silhouette against the setting sun. But arriving too late for that, and not really wanting to scout out an eastern location visually free of telephone wires in the dark, I remembered an old Life cover of Three Mile Island by Greg Heisler. Before digital cameras, he used tungsten transparency film to produce a spooky blue-toned photo of the two cooling towers. Switching gears, I shot east instead, into the gathering night. Easily able to set my white balance to a lower Kelvin temperature with my Canon digital camera, I quickly shot several images with a similar look and feel, this one my favorite. As an added bonus, halogens from the nearby Cannery Pier Hotel created some nice highlights on the foreground pilings.