Stone Arch Reflections by Ric Rosow

Submitted by Mill District resident Ric Rosow

I stepped outside onto our patio in the morning just as the rain ended. I saw a wonderful reflection of the arches of the Stone Arch Bridge in the calm waters of the Mississippi River. Not trusting that the calm would last long, I took my camera just as it was set up on my tripod with a telephoto lens. I thought a wide angle lens might be better, but did not want to take the time to change lenses. As it turned out the telephoto lens delivered exactly what I wanted to capture.

The calm waters reflected well. When I processed the photograph I saw that there were several people on the bridge who I had not noticed. In particular there was a man and a women in the middle of the bridge with their backs to me as they stood at the railing on the falls side of the bridge. Each had an arm around the other. I thought it would be a nice touch to keep them in the picture. But that was not what attracted me to the scene in the first place. More important than that however, is that beyond them there were too many distracting elements on the other side of the bridge. Wires, fences, a road, electric transmission towers, as well as other people on the bridge would take the viewers eye away from the arches and the reflection in the water. I decided to crop the image to just the bridge arches and their reflection. In anticipation of printing the image I placed a 1/4 inch white border around the image and a black border around that. Both will be covered up when the image is displayed in mat inside a frame.  

I hope you enjoy viewing the image. See more of my work at www.ricrosowphotography.com.