RevRows!: The Big Red Bridge

I like living in a place that I know deeply, and over a long period of time. For my photographic eye, it means that there are both familiarities and new views of exactly the same objects. It strikes me that this is a way of contemplation...the same thing in view, and yet seen differently, from different angles. And always the possibility of yet another new view. There is something about photographing a well-known object, even an inanimate one, which makes a difference in the feeling of the image.

Take, for example, the Big Red Bridge (what the traffic reporters sometimes call it). I have been roaming around it, and across it, for years now. The south end, the north end, the vista points, underneath. I even walked on the bridge in 1987 with friends, for the 50th anniversary party. I gave my brother Peter some Big Red Paint (they sell it at the gift shop) at one point, because he loves bridges. Whenever I drive it, I like to think of it as My Bridge.

The bridge was the subject of intense security right after 9/11. Seeing that every time I crossed somehow made the tragedy real for me. The Golden Gate under attack seemed as impossible as the World Trade Center, which I also claimed as my own while in graduate school at NYU so many moons ago. These structures matter. They become part of our landscape. We in the church often downplay the importance of "bricks and mortar"; I think we do that to remind ourselves that in the end, it is life that matters, not inanimate objects. And at the same time, the icons bury themselves in the ground of our being and help us to locate ourselves, know who and where we are. They matter.

Recently, a friend and I went walking under the north end, and then up above on the trail into the headlands. My favorite of these images is the proud Ironworkers sign; gotta love their ingenuity. And so I offer today some images of the Golden Gate Bridge for your contemplation.