We were walking around London on a lovely afternoon and soon found ourselves on the South Bank of the Thames, along The Queen’s Walk.
Between Westminster and Waterloo Bridges lies Hungerford Bridge, which has rail lines running into Charing Cross Station. Flanking this rail bridge are two pedestrian bridges that opened in 2002 and were named the Golden Jubilee Bridges in honor of Queen Elizabeth’s 50 years on the throne. In fact, they are the busiest footbridges in London, with an estimated footfall of 8.5 million each year.
Their shiny metal stood out against the afternoon sky as we walked right up to the base. I pulled out my plastic Holga camera from my pocket, loaded with black-and-white film. I looked through the plastic window that serves as a viewfinder and decided that tilting the camera would add interest to the diagonal lines of the support cables.
Just as I was framing my shot, a lone pedestrian stopped to look out over the Thames, perfectly aligned with the support column behind him. Perfect!
Click. One shot. That’s all I took.
When I scanned the film back home, I was captivated by the wonderful lines of the steel strands splaying out in different directions, with that lone column directing the viewer’s eye right down to the human point of interest. The soft falloff of focus around the perimeter of the frame, thanks to the Holga’s plastic lens, added to the effect.
Unlike the other Holga images from that trip, I chose to eliminate any color casts from the scan and kept it as a strictly black-and-white image, fitting for the metallic structure recorded.
