Saturday, June 07, 2025

We'll cross that bridge...

Cable-stayed goodness
Nipigon, ON
June 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

The Nipigon River Bridge crosses the Nipigon River, which connects to Lake Nipigon, itself not far from the township of, you guessed it, Nipigon. Such imagination, no?

Naming aside, it’s a striking piece of engineering along the Trans-Canada Highway that alternates between mind numbing sameness - So. Many. Trees. - and flashes of stunning geological formations that would be at home in National Geographic.

So when my GPS app said we were approaching the bridge, I thought it would be fun to try to snag a photo from my third-row seat at the back of the minivan. As luck would have it, the only camera close by was my iPhone. And the window I’d be shooting through was covered with forest fire particulate.

And yet, it sorta worked. I think.

I share this not because the geometric photo is especially lovely. This will not become a poster. But anyone who’s hung around my feed long enough knows that’s not how I define photographic success.

A great picture freezes a moment in time. It reflects the lives we lead. It can often be a blurry, scratch-covered mess of random lines and unplanned composition - again, just like the lives it reflects.

That’s what this photo is to me. Not remotely technically perfect, but perfect in its reflection of the journey we were on, the tiny circle of family who shared the experience, and the memories we were making as we criss-crossed the country.

It wasn’t planned or methodically composed. It’s an image that was grabbed quickly, in the moment, before it slipped just as quickly into the past.

In that sense, photography is little more than a mirror of the life it tries to reflect. As the bridge fades into the rearview, I hold my breath and hope I’ve managed to pull it off.

#nipigon #ontario #canada #bridge #roadtrip #travel #travelphotography #travelgram #transcanada #highway #speed #geometry #photography #apple #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

Related:
Spanning the years, April 2013

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