Rock Creek Park - Boulder Bridge

Author's Comments

The first time I found Boulder Bridge I had been walking for maybe twenty minutes along the creek and I genuinely thought I had left the city. That is the trick of Rock Creek. You are four miles from the White House and the traffic noise simply stops, and then the trees open and there is this improbable stone arch rising out of the forest like something from a much older country. The bridge itself is the subject, but the photograph I keep trying to make is from down in the creek looking up. You have to get your boots wet. The boulders are uneven and slick in places, so I move slowly and set the tripod low, and then I wait for the light to come down through the canopy at the right angle. Late October is the window. The maples above the bridge go copper and the stone holds a kind of warmth it does not have in summer, and if the creek is running well after a rain the long exposure turns the water to something like smoke around the rocks. Golden hour here is not the clean horizontal light you get on an overlook. It is filtered, broken up by the trees, landing in patches. That unevenness is the whole point. You are not shooting a monument. You are shooting a piece of infrastructure that the forest has mostly reclaimed, and the photograph should feel like a discovery rather than a record. Bring the tripod. Bring patience. Most people drive over this bridge without ever seeing it from below.

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