Edmonton And Around

Light the Bridge - Blue

Well, this was a challenge! Edmonton's iconic High Level Bridge received her lights on Canada Day 2014. Scandelous to colour the ancient black steel structure built in 1913. Lighting her up feels like giving a 101 year old lady Mardi Gras beads - if you want to think about it that way.

I've never found a great place to photograph the bridge. Edmonton's river valley is full of trees near the bank to prevent the river from eroding - and minimizing the wide open views of the river valley. This view from Ezio Farone Park is among the most popular. (The wooden stair case seems to have fewer tree obstructions than the top of the hill.) River Valley road between the LRT Bridge and the High Level Bridge actually results in a nice view as well. Walking up further to the legislature is a limited option because after a short walk up the hill, the view is obstructed with trees. I may try the Walterdale bridge site and see how that works.

The bridge lights change every 12 seconds or so - I guess that means long exposures are limited to under 12 seconds otherwise it's like mixing different colours of kool-aid. And each colour seems to have a different level of highlights - the blue and purple lights are slightly more blown out in the photo. Green and Yellow seem to have turned out best for me. The red didn't seem to work out all that well - it seems to cover up the bridge details.

The tourist street car is shown in some of the photos. It waited almost an hour before and after the lights came on near the centre of the bridge, drove to the north end of the bridge, stopped briefly, and left for the Strathcona streetcar barns on the south side. 

Top top it all off - when I left, the sky had a few clouds but didn't look like it was going to rain. Then about half-an-hour after sunset, it started showering - hard. I was going to try a few different locations but that will save for another night!

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