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Swing Bridge and Tyne Bridge, Newcastle

Swing Bridge and Tyne Bridge, Newcastle

Welcome to Newcastle upon Tyne! The River Tyne can be seen in the photo above along with three of the city’s most famous and historic bridges. This river separates the city of Newcastle on the left of the frame from Gateshead to the right. I will start with the Tyne Bridge as it is one of the main symbols of the city. This is the green coloured arched suspended-deck bridge at the top of the photograph. It was opened in 1928 and has a clearance of 26 metres from the water.

The red and white bridge in the foreground is the original bridge over the River Tyne and as it’s name suggested it’s a swing bridge. This means that it can rotate to allow ships to pass. It was opened in 1876 and stands on the site of the Old Tyne Bridges of 1270 and 1781. To take this photograph I was stood on the High Level Bridge and in the background behind Tyne Bridge you can see the very modern white footbridge called the Gateshead Millennium Bridge.

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Angel of the North – front view

Angel of the North - front view

This photograph shows my second best image of the Angel of the North. I feel the better photo has a nicer looking sky. This picture shows the full wing span of the angel and gives a great sense of scale by including a man, standing by the statues feet. When I was up at Gateshead, nearly two weeks ago now, I didn’t know what to expect in terms of angles and places to photograph the angel from, I knew it was big, but didn’t know much else. If you are going to see the Angel of the North it is well worth it. Just follow signs from the Gateshead junction of the A1 motorway. It’s less than five or ten minutes out of your journey and there are dozens of places to stand and ways to take the statues photograph.

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Angel of the North – Newcastle

Angel of the North - Newcastle

Another early start, this time for a trip to Scotland. Having been planning this trip for sometime, I couldn’t have asked for a better start to the day. I had a lovely breakfast at the Westmorland Services (more specifically the hotel at the services) on the M6 motorway just south of Carlisle. We then travelled over to the east coast of the country, along near Hadrian’s Wall but not quite. The photograph above shows the location for my first photo shoot of the day – the famous Angel of the North at Gateshead (just south of Newcastle). The sculpture designed by Antony Gormley and was built from 1994 to 1998.  It stands at 20 metres (66 feet) tall, with wings measuring 54 metres (178 feet). Interestingly enough, this makes it wider than the Statue of Liberty’s height. After taking the above picture this morning, we then travelled up the coast on the A1 to Edinburgh, stopping a number of times for more photography opportunities.