Seattle Skyline from the Jose Rizal Bridge

I’m including this photo because I think it demonstrates a point about composition and fusion. The rail on the bridge is too close in the image, but It works because the line of trees behind it have turned to featureless black and have separated the railing from most of the rest of the shot. I didn’t do that intentionally. I’m not that smart! (There is a small stretch of road that meets the railing that you can see in one image and not the other). The point is that the darkness of the trees act as a separator making it like 2 photographs — the close railing and the far city, so it’s not so difficult to fuse. If there had been a close vertical element (like a tall signpost) that passed through both the near and far parts of the image it couldn’t have worked.

Some notes about this image: The Jose Rizal Bridge is a favorite spot for photographers, and you can imagine why. You need a long exposure to get traffic trails, but the bridge bounces horribly when the frequent buses pass by, so you need to time your shots to avoid them. The image suffers from lens flare that could have been avoided had I been more attentive. And the railing is painted with the ugliest of insitutional green paint, but under the vapor streetlights it looks like solid gold!