Fantastically Freezing Fun for Fifty Folks!  The temperature was a chilly 21 degrees with a stiff breeze. Brenda and I arrived an hour early to assess the ice conditions and determine how risky the placement of people would be. After surveying the entire area, we thought it would be safe for folks to venture around the bridge and avoid icy patches, so long as they were careful.

We asked folks to arrive at 3:30 allowing time for logistics and organization. At 3:40 only ten people had arrived and I started wondering if we were going to have enough light painters to illuminate the bridge – the estimate was at least 35 needed to bathe the bridge in light. My fears quickly waned as more and more folks showed up, by 4:00 we had critical mass – a rough count of 45 people.

Duck Brook Bridge is the largest bridge of the project to light paint. While on top of the bridge, I divided the group into 4 teams each armed with a walkie-talkie and a designated location. Brenda had the great idea of putting all the little kids in the far barrel – there was no ice and no way for the kids to fall off a cliff!  Each team assembled in their respective location and checked that they were out of view of the camera. The before shot.

There’s a lot of area to cover on this bridge, with a long expanse and three barrels. We have never shot three barrels before! After a few shots and lots of adjustments, the image was starting to take shape. There was one final adjustment, I asked Kevin and Amy if they could run across the bridge and light the far wall from the stairs above. They said, “No problem” and ran off in a dash. Here’s the final image.

A huge heartfelt thanks to everyone who participated! We really needed all 50 light painters for this bridge. Even with that many people, we still had to shift folks around to cover the entire bridge. Brenda started baking Snicker-doodles cookies early that morning and everyone enjoyed them. Others brought holiday cookies and brownies to share even before the bridge shot.  Scarlett was trying to negotiate holding onto her cookie while having to perform the serious responsibility of picking the winning raffle ticket with Eric Taylor’s name. He won the Amphitheater Bridge print.

Twenty new folks joined us for this bridge. Everyone had fun. Everyone was safe and there were no injuries. All in all a very successful bridge shot in every way possible, in spite of our wind blown rosy cheeks.