The Saint Johns Bridge: Framing and Color

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Now that I was finally on-point, it was time to play with framing and the effects thoughtfully provided in-camera to the Canon Powershot S-100 by the manufacturer.

This first one is something of an "expected" compostion, good for just a nice picture you can enjoy and lose yourself in. Landsape.

I've zoomed and cropped to give you a good look at a couple of features of the local geography. Notice the grove of evergreens there at the middle of the left side of the photo? That's a large park on the west side of the St. Johns neighborhood called Pier Park. And, despite the proximity to some of the working Portland harbor, it's not named for a bit of nautical architecture, but a city commissioner, Sylvester Pier, who was Parks Commissioner from 1919 through 1923.

Above the right end of the grove you can just barely see the cone of Luuwit ... Mount St Helens. The predominance of blue light and white cloud makes the volcano kind of soften back into the background. On a truly clear day you can just sew Washington's highest peak, mighty Tahoma ... Mount Rainier.

Just a few feet up the trail from the viewpoint an opening in the foliage provided an additional framing opportunity so I grabbed it. The strong vertical lines of the bridge's towers lent themselves aptly to a portrait orientation.

Still, the photo doesn't do justice to the way the bridge's architecture dominates the visual field. This is something you have to experience in person. Framing and composition, as with Wy'east, only gets you part the way ... a great deal of the way, but there's nothing like the human experience.

And, the next two photos take advantage of the monochrome filters on the camera to produce dramatic images with emotional content for me. I recall seeing similar monochromatic images as station-ID cards on local TV when I was just a runt, so this takes me back to Silverton, when my only idea of what Portland was, was on the TV.

Black and white:

... and an unexpectedly-intriguing blue tone, which works even better in portrait.

Approaching The Saint Johns Bridge From The West

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The two approaches to the Saint Johns Bridge couldn't me much more different if they were placed in different time zones.

The east approach, from the business district of its namesake Portland neighborhood, is kind of what you'd expect from a bridge like this. From a high point on N. Philadelphia Avenue just a block or so south of Lombard street, the land drops away on a quick but gradual slope and a long steel trusswork which goes on for what must be 800-1000 feet before entering the main suspension span of the work.

The west end runs straight into the side of a hill.

Below the west end of the Saint Johns Bridge US Hwy 30, a/k/a NW Saint Helens Road and the main road out of the northwest corner of Portland and the route to the coast at Astoria, runs. It's probably about 100 feet straight up. So they engineered an approach on the west side that involves a side road, and this road is called NW Bridge Avenue. Climbing at a remarkable slope, maybe a three or four per cent grade, I don't know, it connects with the west end of the bridge a its summit before descending again to reconnect with Hwy 30.

This is part of the nature within Portland that everyone knows us for, and it's beautiful and busy and urban all at the same time. While the view of the bridge itself from the viewpoint is stunning, there is much to look at and admire on the way up, here at what is the edge of Portland's Forest Park.

You're already on the side of the hill by the time you're halfway up to the bridge entrance, so while the views aren't as stunning as the one from the viewpoint, they're still exceptional.

Such as ...

Looking down the hill you get glimpses of the wide Willamette, thick trees, and the bluff of the North Portland peninsula, looking pleasantly green on this warm early-summer day in Cascadia.

Just out of shot on the right in this photo, the end of that nearly horizontal tree truck ends in a fractured tree trunk and stump, probably some sort of windfall. What keeps the windfall from being a deadfall is that there are so many trees here that if and when it falls, it won't fall far. The motorists on NW Saint Helens Road below have nothing to worry on, I'm certain.

And, as much as the bridge looks gorgeous, framing it as weaving itself in and out of the nature that's already there makes it terribly artistic and harmonious. The gothic lines of the bridge harmonize nicely with the chaotic joy of the sylvan canopy.