About this limited edition photograph:

The light painted photograph “Daley’s Bowstring” was created on the (now deceased) Daley’s Bowstring Bridge in Winneshiek County, Iowa.

In 2017, a 20-ton semi drove over the Daley’s Bowstring Bridge, a bridge with a 3-ton weight limit, and collapsed it into the Upper Iowa River. This was a sad day as the Daley’s Bowstring Bridge was a rare example of a bowstring bridge, and one of only a few left in the state of Iowa. Additionally, the bridge’s location has among the lowest light polluted skies in the area. This bridge made for one of my favorite subjects to photograph at night, and the dark skies allowed me to produce great astrophotographs with little light pollution. RIP.

To create this light painted photograph I placed my Canon T3i camera on a tripod and I used a long exposure of 647 seconds. Using an aqua colored gel filter in front of my powerful spotlight, I walked the length of the bridge illuminating every part of the iron structure with light. Because it was very foggy that night, my powerful spotlight made the fog glow bright, creating an eerie look to the resulting photograph. The blue spirograph effect was created by taping blue LEDs to a 14″ diameter wheel. I rolled the wheel across the deck of the bridge, utilizing the vertical members of the bridge as visual queues so I could make the lines cross in a symmetrical fashion. The orb of sparks at the end of the bridge were created by spinning 0000 steel wool on fire. Turning my body around in a full circle turned the circle of sparks into an orb. I was careful to choose a night that had a damp ground to prevent any chance of starting a fire. 

A highlight to the production of this photograph were the coyotes a couple hundred feet from me on the hillside that howled as I worked. It sent chills down my spine to hear coyotes so close.

This photograph came off my camera as-is, and involved zero post-processing or Photoshop.

Nocturnal Designs © 2012.