Accidental Lift Bridge

A colorful evening down by the lift bridge.Like this photo? You can order prints of it!

Here's one I took a month ago, when we still had some ice on the Portage. We'd had a nice clear day, so I drove down near the Portage to try taking some photos of the lift bridge at sunset. I took a bunch of photos, but nothing was really turning out like I wanted.

Just then, I noticed an older fellow who had a camera set up on a tripod nearby, with a giant lens on it. He came moseying over and started talking about a rare owl which had been seen in the area, and which he was hoping to photograph on the bridge that night. This fellow was a real character. To begin, he was dressed in waders, Carharts, and flannel. He had been a logging truck driver for years before he sustained some sort of head injury, which left him with memory problems. He had trouble keeping a job, so instead he bought this giant 1000 mm lens and an old Nikon and headed north to do wildlife photography. He had the best attitude: "You know how you see a good movie, but the twist at the end isn't surprising after the first time you've seen it? Well it's new every time for me!"

We got to talking about cameras, and he let me give his huge lens a try. In return I showed him some neat features of digital cameras (like setting color balance and seeing your shots immediately). Along the way, I randomly shot another photo to demonstrate, and lo and behold, that was the one and only good photo from that shoot. Now you too can enjoy that accidental photo!