Wien Donaustadtbrücke (Bridge) - Playing Colours, Black & White Wins

Donaustadtbrücke, Vienna

I shot only one picture today.

Well not fully true but close...

Once I setup the tripod and framed the scene I have not changed the position till the end of the session. To be completely honest - I did once to test vertical frame, but I did not like it as much as horizontal, so all subsequent shots are framed horizontally.

Also vertical composition was cutting off my longest line - the bridge and here I am explaining what I mean.

I was looking for simple composition with lots of lines, and what better can be found with lots of lines than the bridge, and especially suspension bridge. There are lines everywhere - horizontal, vertical, diagonal.
Whole picture is composed of lines that lead the eye around from left to right and up and down. You just cannot stop wandering around the frame building up the desire of crossing onto other side to see what's there. This is what I wanted. I got almost there... I was after more dramatic weather effect but today's sky did not comply with my wishes. Cloudy forecast happened to be fairy tail. Later towards the evening the sky completely cleared.

Donaustadtbrücke, Vienna; 27mm, 0.3s, f16, ISO 100

I started about half an hour before the sunset which was happening to my left side. Camera is positioned almost directly north... which means I can try to shoot nice stars the other day... or night to be more precise. I only have to find out at what time bridge's illumination is shut down. Worth testing.

So the first shot here has been taken during dimming daylight. It was wee bit greyish so I took out of my sleeve my favourite gold-n-blue polarizer to get some proper sun-setting dusk colours.

Colours popped-up and they look quite good, but I am missing bridge's illumination and contrast. The bridge is grey. I waited and waited, the world around me kept darkening, sky from dark blue moved into black and I still could not find what I was after...

Let me also mention that for this and few previous and further shots I used also 2 stops nd grad and 3 stops grey filter to slow down the shutter speed to around 1-2 minutes. Shot above was 2 minutes exposure, as you can see from the water. On the other hand those few little clouds simply stood still. Later they completely disappeared.

Donaustadtbrücke, Vienna; 27mm, 120s, f11, ISO 50

Finally someone switched on the lights and the scene changed completely not to mention night sky around me. No point to use filters any more. They have no effect in such conditions... with one exception. I still kept on soft nd grad to darken top bridge's lights and have brighter water. Of course I had to adjust the exposure to work with changed light conditions. Now I was shooting at ISO 100 with shutter speed of 240s - 4 minutes. I stayed at F11 as before to have same picture's optics and depth of field.

I came up with something like this:

Donaustadtbrücke, Vienna; 27mm, 240s, f11, ISO 100

Totally different mood. I like the water colours and texture. There were some light behind me which illuminated the water and brought this effect if I could see through Danube waters. Illusion.
You can't see through it.
Picture is nice and looks real. But does not speak to me.

When colours and mood do not speak as asked, let's check black and white version and pump up the contrast and wow. This is it. All illuminated suspension ropes, bridge, lights - all my lines simply jump out of the frame. They contrast so well with dark background.

Donaustadtbrücke, Vienna
Black and white conversion of above picture.

I am close to the picture I am after.
I am not there yet but close.
I will be checking weather forecasts and will visit the location again. I have three ideal visions... with fog, with lots of dark clouds, and one with thunder strike. This would be something.

Sometimes it is better to go black and white.

Final comment, I cropped the pictures to 16:9 ratio, I liked those versions more than original 3:2

Cheers
Jerzy