Taking only photographs – leaving only footprints
I didn’t know it at the time, but this is the Baltic Centre of Contemporary Art. This was taken from the Gateshead Millennium Bridge looking towards Gateshead. As you can see from the bottom left this art centre is on the banks of the Tyne River. As I stood capturing this image the sun and Newcastle town centre were directly behind me on the other side of the river. Hence the lovely even lighting and even blue sky.
The Centre for Life is a science centre located in the city of Newcastle in the north of England. Here we can see a close up of the large “Life” logo above the northern entrance. Established in 2000 this centre is the location of a large educational charity and science museum. Mark and I stumbled upon it quite by accident whilst exploring the city centre of Newcastle one Saturday morning back in June.
There is a road between the river and this ultra modern concert hall that is extremely close to this large glass building. Seeing it I knew I needed to get down there with my super wide Sigma 10mm lens and try to get the above image. However, when I eventually made it down to this road the sun was directly behind the building, so I have had to make an HDR (high dynamic range) image out of my original file. This has brought out more detail in both the dark shadow areas on the building and at the same time brought back highlight details that would normally have been lost.
The more I photograph bridges and architecture, the more I like the results when converted to monochrome or black and white. Especially in this case, as the blue sky almost becomes black and the clouds add an interesting extra element to the image. The Gateshead Millennium Bridge is a pedestrian and cyclist tilt bridge spanning the River Tyne in England, between Gateshead on the south bank and the Quayside of Newcastle-on-Tyne on the north bank. Mark and I were fortunate enough to have waited around till midday (completely unaware) to see the bridge rotate on its axis to allow for ships to pass under.