The Bridge and The Toon

Concept

I was given an idea for a work from someone near and dear to me (my Cuzzy Sarah). Sarah had seen my "Millennium Rooftops" work and suggested a view looking across the Tyne Bridge to St James' Park. So with that in mind, I got the drone up to take some photographs of the Tyne Bridge, with Toon HQ in the background.

A minor consideration

Having cycled past the day before with a close friend of mine, I knew the Kittiwakes had left the nest (awful pun), so felt the drone would be safe from attack. They're smaller and less aggressive than Herring Gulls (funny how Herring Gulls are a lot more 'common' than Common Gulls - I digress).

Getting ( a little) technical

From a 'technical' perspective, I had the same problem with other scenes with foreground and sky on a bright day - high contrast. So took a series of 5 shots from each position - 2 under-exposed for the sky, one exposed for the scene overall, 2 shots over-exposed. The drone captures 'raw' and JPEG format, raw being exactly what it sounds like, the raw data from the sensor - this gives greater flexibility than JPEG, which is processed and can lose detail in very bright and very dark areas. So I ended up with 200 shots for a 15 min flight.

The screen on the controller is the size of many modern smartphones, so difficult to gauge how St James' featured - not as well as I'd hoped. But I do like the overall view , with the Tyne, Tyne Bridge and Quayside in the foreground, leading across the Newcastle skyline, including the castle, leading through to St James' beyond.

Challenges

At the moment, I'm not sure how well I can develop this overall series of images, because all the main elements move in relation to each other as I moved across the face of the Tyne Bridge (take a look at the 3 images here and note for example, how Newcastle Keep moves in relation to the Tyne Bridge, how the bridges move in relation to each other , how the buildings in the fore, middle and back grounds move in relation to each other). So, each main element will have to be cut from each image, warped / stretched and repositioned to align with each other. Gone are the days of walking around a tree and simply lining images up and blending them!!!

There are 2 other factors I'm bearing in mind here too. I might get a better perspective of St James' from further upstream ( wanted something that my Toon Army friends would appreciate). I may be better between the Tyne Bridge and the High Level Bridge (the tawny coloured bridge to the left and at the same height as the Tyne Bridge). It might give more prominence to the Keep as well.

And whilst we Geordies love the Tyne Bridge, it's looking in a right mess. The maintenance / painting work won't be completed for at least another 2 years, with road maintenance of the area due to complete in 2026 (so there may be roadworks on the bridge beyond 2024.

But the weather ain't great next week, so I might just give it a go.