Daggett County, Utah.

If you drive to Flaming Gorge, you’ll find yourself on U.S. Highway 191, and at some point on your way to the dam and reservoir, you’ll cross the Cart Creek Bridge. Fortunately, there is a large area near the bridge for you to capture photos of the graceful steel arch-designed bridge.

Constructed in 1962, the bridge was originally used for workers to cross Cart Creek on their way to work on the Flaming Gorge Dam. Once the dam was completed, the reservoir backed up into Cart Creek, so the bridge crossed the creek for only two years. Since the dam’s completion, it crosses Cart Creek Bay.

The image above was captured shortly after the completion of the bridge in September 1963. At that time, the dam was not yet completed Cart Creek still flowed naturally into the Snake River instead of the reservoir. More details on the photo and history of the bridge can be found here.

The Cart Creek Bridge is a steel arch suspension bridge, known for its elegant and eye-catching design. It features a single 550-foot span, making it the longest single-span bridge in Utah at the time of its construction. Its beauty earned it an Award of Merit from the American Institute of Steel Construction. Unfortunately, there is no walking path on the bridge.

The bridge’s design is similar to two other bridges in Utah: the Cisco Bridge and the Moab Rim Trail Bridge. The bridge was built by the American Bridge Division of U.S. Steel for USD 810,000. Using an online inflation calculator, the cost in 2023 U.S. dollars would be over $8 million. But no matter the cost, the beauty of this bridge is undeniable.

John Steiner

Council Bluffs, Iowa.

From our hotel in Council Bluffs, Iowa, I could see a railroad bridge off in the distance. It wasn’t long and I could hear the unmistakable sound of a train. I was able to capture the freight train as it crossed the Missouri River into Omaha, Nebraska. There is a wealth of information on the history of this important bridge on Wikipedia. The bridge completed the final connection between the western and eastern parts of the transcontinental rail system.

The original bridge was completed in 1872, rebuilt twice, and since 1916 has carried traffic in its current configuration. The rail truss bridge stands 62 feet (19 m) above the river and uses piers built from the 1880 bridge. The total length of the bridge is 1,750 feet (533 m). There is much detail on the history of the three bridges built on this site on one of my favorite bridge reference sources at John Wicks’ site here.

About the photo: I used the 10X telephoto mode on my Samsung S23U as I was quite a distance from the bridge. Still, I needed two images to create this extra wide panorama. The resolution of the image as posted on my WordPress site makes it appear out of focus slightly. I recommend clicking on the image to view it on my Flickr site in 2K HD resolution.

Panoramic stitching was completed in Luminar Neo and the final image was tweaked with Enhanced AI. I added just a bit of Golden Hour to emphasize the color in the sky as sunset approached.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

Funchal, Madeira, Portugal.

As we crossed the Atlantic Ocean on our transatlantic cruise in March, we visited several islands. On the Portuguese island of Madeira, our excursion put us on a cable car that transported us to a beautiful botanical garden. As we transited the chasm between two mountains on our way to the garden, I spotted a vehicle bridge, one of the tallest I’ve seen. Of course, I made sure to capture several views and vowed to find out the details of this high bridge.

The bridge forms part of the VR1, Madeira’s main ring road. It was completed in 1994 and was designed by engineer António José Luís dos Reis. It is 900 ft (274.5 m) long and stands 460 ft (140 m) above the João Gomes Stream that flows in the canyon below. Though I couldn’t see both ends of the bridge from the cable car, I learned that the bridge approaches tunnels on both sides of the chasm.

Beneath the bridge, other roadways traverse the chasm as well, but the VR1 connects the island’s capital city to the western part of the island. There is no pedestrian crossing on the bridge which is designed with a pre-stressed concrete box girder, single-span design. The deck is supported by two pylons, each of which is about 230 ft (70 m) tall.

The bridge and the river it spans are both named after João Gomes, a local farmer who owned the land where the bridge was built. Gomes was a popular figure in Madeira, and his name was chosen for the bridge to honor his contributions to the community. I couldn’t find much information available about João Gomes, but it is clear that he was a well-respected member of the Madeira community. He was known for his generosity and his willingness to help others. He was also a strong advocate for the farmers of Madeira, and he worked to improve their lives.

One of the advantages of my Samsung S23U cell phone is the 10x zoom. As we departed Madeira, I spotted the bridge, only one pilon visible in the canyon. The city of Madeira grew upward on both of the mountains that created the canyon and the need for the bridge.

John Steiner

Metairie, Louisiana.

The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway bridges are a pair of parallel bridges that cross Lake Pontchartrain in southeastern Louisiana, United States. The longer of the two bridges is 23.83 miles (38.35 km) long, making it the longest continuous bridge over water in the world. The southern terminus of the causeway is in Metairie, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, and the northern terminus is in Mandeville, Louisiana.

The causeway bridges were built in the 1950s and 1960s to provide a direct connection between New Orleans and the North Shore. Prior to the construction of the causeway, the only way to travel between the two shores was by ferry or by driving around the lake, which added about an hour to the journey.

There are seven crossovers on the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, spaced approximately 3.5 miles (5.6 km) apart. The crossovers are meant to be for emergency stopping only. Crossovers are important safety features on the two bridges. They allow drivers to pull off the road if they experience a problem, such as a flat tire or a mechanical failure. The crossovers also provide a safe place for emergency vehicles to stop and respond to incidents.

If you ever need to use a crossover on the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, be sure to pull over completely and turn on your hazard lights. There are also areas along the spans on the right side for emergency stops. There are no places for sightseers to pull off to take photos. All of these images were captured by my cellphone as we transited the northbound bridge.

Even at six miles (9.6 km), the north shore of the lake is all but invisible on the horizon. The speed limit is 65 MPH, and at that rate, it took us about 25 minutes to cross the causeway.

The causeway bridges are supported by over 9,000 concrete piles that are driven into the bottom of the lake. The bridges are made up of a series of prefabricated concrete slabs that were barged out to the construction site and assembled using a floating crane.

This view through the windshield shows that the bridges have tall sections that allow larger boats to pass underneath. If you click on the image to view it in Flickr, you can see one of the crossovers between the two bridges.

I experimented with some images captured from through the windshield of the Chevy Suburban we were in. I was seated in the rear seat behind the driver when I captured this image between the front seats. I used a new feature in Photoshop to create this panorama. I will fill you in on the details in the upcoming Cellpic Sunday. In the meantime, you can get a view of all these images in 2K HD on my Flickr site here.

John Steiner

Hannibal, Missouri.

So, this post is about a relatively new bridge named for a favorite son. But wait, there’s more… If you look closely, another bridge is behind the one in the foreground above. But first, the bridge in the foreground is a four-lane, Steel Truss Through Deck bridge with a total length of 4,491 feet (1,369 m). Completed in October 2000, the bridge is named after Mark Twain, who was born in Hannibal in 1835. Twain’s stories about the Mississippi River were inspired by his childhood in Hannibal, and the bridge provides a modern link to the river that played such an important role in his life.

The purpose of the bridge is to route traffic over the Mississippi River between Illinois and Missouri on I-72. The bridge is 62 feet (19 m) above the Mississippi. It replaced a bridge located a short distance downstream that carried traffic on U.S. Highway 36. That original bridge was demolished and traffic was redirected to the new bridge.

Just upstream of the Mark Twain Memorial Bridge is the Wabash Bridge. The bridge is only 20 feet (6 m) above the water. The majority of bridge sections are Steel Truss through Deck, but the westernmost section is moveable to allow water traffic to move up and downstream. Previously a swing span section, that section was replaced by a vertical lift section. That construction, completed in 1994, closed the single rail bridge for three days as workers removed the swing span and replaced it with a lift span relocated from a bridge over the Tennessee River in Alabama.

You can’t see it in the image above but immediately after reaching the western bank of the river, a sheer rockface required a tunnel be drilled through the high bluff. The current owner of the bridge is the Norfolk Southern Railway. For more details, check here.

An interesting additional detail about the bridge, as documented on Wikipedia here, involves a notable incident in 1982. During this time, a towboat experienced engine failure while navigating through robust river currents, while attempting to handle a convoy of 12 barges laden with grain. As a result, the vessel collided with one of the 250-foot (76 m) truss spans, leading to the span’s collapse into the river. This incident resulted in the entanglement of the tugboat and multiple barges, causing a disruption in river traffic for a period of nine hours. Furthermore, three of the barges managed to break loose from the entanglement and drifted downstream. Fortunately, none of those grain-filled barges struck the Mark Twain Memorial Bridge as they drifted downstream.

An interesting additional detail about the bridge, as documented on Wikipedia here, involves a notable incident in 1982. During this time, a towboat experienced engine failure while navigating through robust river currents, while attempting to handle a convoy of 12 barges laden with grain. As a result, the vessel collided with one of the 250-foot (76 m) truss spans, leading to the span’s collapse into the river. This incident resulted in the entanglement of the tugboat and multiple barges, causing a disruption in river traffic for a period of nine hours. Furthermore, three of the barges managed to break loose from the entanglement and drifted downstream. Fortunately, none of those grain-filled barges struck the Mark Twain Memorial Bridge as they drifted downstream.

For those who’d like to pixel-peep, these images can be viewed in 2K HD via my Flickr site here.

John Steiner

Officially known as the President Costa e Silva Bridge, the second-longest bridge in Latin America connects the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Niterói and spans Guanabara Bay. When construction was completed in 1974, and until 1985, it was the world’s second-longest bridge, second only to the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in the United States.

The box girder design carries eight lanes of traffic on BR-101 and is 8.26 miles (13.29 km) long. At its highest point, its 236-foot (76 m) height allows most ships to pass through the bay.

About the photo: I captured the image on my Samsung S23U in two images from a deck on the Norwegian Star. I set the camera to its widest angle format and created a left and right image that I joined together in Adobe Lightroom. We weren’t that close to the bridge as we cruised away from Rio, but if we were closer, it would have been even harder to capture the entire length of the bridge. Click on the image above to pixel-peep in 2K HD via my Flickr site.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

Valley View, Ohio.

In our continuing quest to discover what our national parks have to offer, we headed south of Cleveland toward Cuyahoga National Park and found a visitor center near the highway we traveled. There were cars in the parking lot, but as it turned out, the Canal Exploration Center was closed. The park facilities have seasonal hours and we discovered that between Labor Day and the end of October, the center is only open on Saturdays and Sundays. Of course, the day of our visit was Thursday. Strike one!

We heard the unmistakeable sound of a train on a nearby track and a couple of other gentlemen in the parking lot gave us some information about the park and the nearby scenic railroad. We were excited to know more about the railroad and between the signage in front of the visitor center, comments from our two acquaintances, and an online search, we found that the train stops at several places along the route. We also learned that it was their last run of the day and that we missed its nearby stop. No matter as it wouldn’t have returned here for us to pick up our car, anyway. Strike two!

We discovered that the parking lot is used by hikers and bikers who want to hike the Towpath Trail, a popular scenic trail in the park that provides views of the Erie Canal and up-close views of the national park. We weren’t up to a long hike, but I did notice a pedestrian bridge still standing right next to a more modern roadway bridge where they both crossed the Cuyahoga River. The Towpath Trail parallels Canal Road along with parts of the original Erie Canal. In the opposite direction, the pedestrian bridge leads to the train station for the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad. Even though we missed the train, we decided to take a short walk across the bridge to check it out.

I like to include details of the bridges I feature when I come upon them. Occasionally I come up empty with Internet searches. My most recent example is the old bridge at Betanos Spain. I couldn’t find any details at all. As it turns out, this bridge has the same lack of information. The Ohio Dept of Transportation features a collection of historic bridges, but this one, identified in Google Maps as the Canal Trail Bridge is not included. Wikipedia also has a fairly complete listing of bridges that cross the Cuyahoga River here. The bridge immediately to the right of the Canal Trail Bridge, the Hillside Bridge, is listed there with some detail, but though the Canal Trail Bridge is identified by name, there is no information about it beyond the name and GPS coordinates. Strike three!

About the photo: The weather on that day was cloudy with occasional rain showers. I decided to focus on the moody weather by tweaking the image to reflect the weather. Starting with Lightroom as usual for cropping and basic edits, I then sent it off to Luminar Neo for noise reduction, then I lowered the exposure of the image. I added a gradient fill in front of the bridge to darken the foreground even more. Then I added a radiant filter over the bridge itself and raised the exposure to draw the viewer’s eyes to the center of the subject. Finally, I used the HSL sliders to bring all of the colors individually to grayscale with each color’s saturation control. Then starting at the top, one at a time, I brought up the saturation of each color to see what colors are present in the image. I purposely left the ones that had the greatest effect, the red, orange, and green sliders, at a lower-than-normal saturation to accentuate the moodiness.

If you know any more about the specifics of this bridge, please feel free to let me know in the comments. To view the image in 2K HD, click on it to see it on my Flickr site.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

London, England.

Sometimes mistaken for the London Bridge, the Tower Bridge is a combined bascule and suspension bridge in London, built between 1886 and 1894. The bridge crosses the River Thames close to the Tower of London. It is so close to the Tower of London that if I were to turn left in this spot, I’d be facing the south wall of the tower enclave near the Middle Drawbridge entrance.

The bridge was designed by Sir Horace Jones and Sir John Wolfe Barry and was officially opened on June 30, 1894, by The Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII). The bridge operates like a drawbridge with two sections of the bridge deck that are hinged on opposite sides. With the help of counterweights inside the towers adjacent to the hinged section of the bridge roadway, the roadway sections between the two towers are lifted to allow tall ships to pass through, while otherwise providing a crossing for road traffic. The bascules were originally powered by steam but were later converted to electricity.

The name “bascule” is derived from the French term for a balance scale which employs the same hinged design principle. The counterweights continuously balance the span throughout its upward swing to provide clearance for boat traffic. It may be single- or, as in the Tower Bridge, double-leafed.

Just upstream from the Tower Bridge, immediately adjacent to the southwest corner of the Tower of London, the Tower Millenium Pier invites tourists to enjoy water excursions along the Thames. The more famous London Bridge crosses the Thames a little further upstream from the pier. The London Bridge was replaced because it was sinking into the river as it could not withstand the amount of road traffic necessary in the mid-20th century.

That bridge built in the early 19th century was purchased by an Arizona developer and moved to Lake Havasu City in Arizona to become a tourist attraction in the Arizona desert.  The current London Bridge was built between 1967 and 1972 and opened by Queen Elizabeth II on March 17, 1973, just over 50 years ago. Both the previous and current bridges known as the London Bridge are fixed bridges, the former a 19th-century stone arch design and the latter a box girder bridge built from concrete and steel. You can glimpse a view of the current London Bridge on the right edge in the photo above.

John Steiner

This week, Anne hosts a challenge that is based on architecture. Her title indicates a wide variety of potential subjects for inclusion. She writes, “My challenge for you, this week, is to find your own fascinating structures that capture your attention, tell a story, or are just beautiful.” You can read her entire challenge post here.

For my challenge response, I feature a specific architectural structure, the bridge. In architecture, a bridge is a structure that spans a physical obstacle such as a river, valley, road, or railway line, providing a passage over it. It is designed to support the weight of people and transport vehicles, and allows for crossing from one side of the obstacle to the other.

My opening image features the Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge. Its purpose is to carry traffic across the chasm instead of taking a longer route that requires vehicles to cross over the top of Hoover Dam. At 1,900 feet (579 m) long, with a 1060-foot-long (323 m) main span, the Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge opened to traffic as the highest and longest single-span concrete arch bridge in the Western Hemisphere.

About 60 miles (97 km) west of my home in Fargo, North Dakota, lies the spectacular Highline Bridge, one of the longest and highest single-track railroad bridges in the United States. The drone image panorama features three images stitched together to capture the entire 3,860-foot (1,177 m) long and 162-foot (49 m) span.

The Highline Bridge has been serving as a regular train route since May 1908 and remains operational to this day. The bridge’s girder, deck, and plate construction rises above the Sheyenne River Valley at Valley City, North Dakota.

These two bridges connect the city of Winnipeg’s St. Boniface neighborhood, with The Forks area in downtown Winnipeg. The automotive bridge is curved and consists of an 820-foot (250 m) long five-span, precast concrete girder structure.

The pedestrian bridge’s design features a cable-stayed deck supported by a single pylon that rises 187 feet (57 m) above the river. The building underneath the spire opened as a restaurant, but Google Maps indicates it is now being used as an office building.

In western North Dakota, the Fairview Lift Bridge spanned the Yellowstone River in 1917. The bridge’s design demonstrated the clout of the steamship companies in the upper Midwest. Engineers were required to install a lift section to allow steamboats’ unimpeded transit. It took so long to complete the bridge, steamboats were no longer navigating the river and the lift section was never used.

Sometimes mistaken for the London Bridge, the Tower Bridge is a combined bascule and suspension bridge in London, built between 1886 and 1894. The term “bascule” references a balanced design similar to a see-saw. With the help of counterweights, the roadway sections between the two towers are lifted to allow tall ships to pass underneath.

In May 1980, the eruption of Mount Saint Helens caused a lasting impact on the landscape. The volcanic explosion resulted in the destruction of the existing highway leading to the volcano. To replace the original highway, a new road called State Route 504, also known as the Spirit Lake Highway, was constructed.

This bridge, towering over a deep valley, is the tallest among the 14 bridges on Highway 504. The valley beneath the bridge reaches a depth of approximately 370 feet (113 m) and crosses Hoffstadt Creek as it winds its way toward the Toutle River. The span is the second tallest bridge in the area and claims the title of being the third tallest bridge in the northwestern United States.

During our journey on the White Pass and Yukon Railroad out of Skagway, Alaska, we encountered a historic bridge. As we crossed the Skagway River on a modern bridge, the steel cantilever bridge above came into view, standing tall even though it has been unused since 1969.

As we traveled over the newer bridge, capturing the old trestle in two images, I had already decided that I might stylize the photographs to give them an aged appearance, I chose the first image in black-and-white and the second in high-key color.

In the ghost town of Sims, North Dakota, this bridge sits unused just like the town where it now sits. For 104 years, the bridge was a way to cross Sims Creek just north of Altamont, North Dakota. The Warren Pony Truss design was not conducive to modernization and because of its truss construction, it couldn’t be widened. In July 2020, the bridge was moved near the only building in Sims that is still in weekly use, the Sims Scandinavian Lutheran Church. You can read the story of the old Sims Creek Bridge here.

I am particularly fond of bridges, so I hope Anne forgives me for focusing on but one style. You can pixel-peep these images in 2K HD via my Flickr album here.

Next week it’s Donna’s turn to “bug” us… er, ah, that’s not a pejorative (sorry, Donna), her theme relates to bugs and other small things. If you’d like to join in but aren’t sure how to get started, details are here.

John Steiner

Rome, Italy.

The Tiber River partially separates the city of Rome from the city-nation, Vatican City. From the wall that rings this edge of Vatican City, you can see one of the bridges that allow travel between the two cities. The three-arch bridge in the photo was opened in 1911. Named after the King of Italy who reigned from 1861 to 1878, the bridge features four towers, each carrying bronze Winged Victory sculptures. The span is 350 feet (108 m) in length.

About the photo: Captured with my Samsung S20U, I was shooting directly into the sun which was just off the image on the top. When I first looked at the photo, I was afraid that the huge solar flair light leak would make the photo unusable. Luminar Neo came to the rescue. I opened the file directly in Neo and immediately went to work on the flare. If I couldn’t get that flare cleaned up, there wasn’t much hope for the image without a major crop.

I wasn’t expecting success with the erase tool and thought I might end up using Neo’s sky replacement feature. I decided to try the Erase tool anyway as it’s pretty efficient. The first couple of tries left duplications of clouds due to the cloning that the tool uses. A couple of undo and retries and some erasure of duplicate cloud effects cleaned up the sky pretty nicely.

I then went to Neo’s Develop module and raised the shadows to bring out more detail in the backlit bridge. I didn’t raise the control very much as it made the bridge “look funny”. Raising the shadows also created another issue. That tower directly under the solar flare didn’t look right as it was a bit hazy and the exposure didn’t match. I used a radial mask to put an oval around that tower and tweaked the exposure and dehaze inside the mask. The goal was to match the look of the tower on the right for exposure. All in all, I think the extra work was worth the processing time. You can view both of these images in 2K HD on my Flickr site. Just click on an image to check it out.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner