Crossing Water - Sepia Saturday

This week's prompt is a 'Couple Crossing a River' with a boulder apparently threatening the pair's success.

It's a widely held belief that you cannot cross running water without there being consequences.

Now if you doubt that this tale is so,

I met that spook just a year ago,

Now I didn't stop for a second look,

But I made for the the bridge that spans the brook,

Cause once you cross the bridge my friends

The ghost is through, his power ends.

— The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

If I had to cross the river at Bristol I'd definitely use the suspension bridge.

Clifton Suspension Bride

The Avon is a long way down even from the road that skirts it.

Looking down from the bridge

Daphne du Maurier first saw Cornwall's River Fowey at the age of 19 when their hire car deposited  her, her mother and sisters at the foot of the hill at Bodinnick by the slipway for the ferry to Fowey.

The ferry slipway is at the centre left edge of the photo above. The house with the blue door is the house the du Mauriers were to buy and rename Ferryside and were Daphne was to write 'The Loving Spirit', the first of her novels.

I'm not a lover of ferries as the only Channel crossing I ever took (in 1959) was horrific even before we had left Calais.

The brook that our sons were threatening to jump looked much more friendly in the 1960s'.

Andrew & Adrian

The rocks did not look big enough to be stepping stones.

However some do not need any help to cross. 

Egret in the Fowey Estuary

Other damsels chose to rest on reeds beside a lake. 

Bluet Damselflies

Some just pause to drink at the water's edge with no thought of crossing.

Fawn at lakeside

But are those rocks intimidating her.

This pup has been cast adrift to make the crossing on his own.

Scout getting ready to paddle with his stick

Now grown up, he would just jump in and swim across.

We have just left him back in Michigan where he lives next to that lake. Of course we have to take a plane back across the pond. But first we have to decide whose in charge.

In the Airbus Cockpit (2013)

Do we push or pull?

Well we crossed safely again this year and now it's time for you to cross over to see what other watery treats are on offer at Sepia-Saturday-254.

Downward - Thematic Photography

I went searching in my archive to meet Carmi's 'Downward' theme this week. I had quite a choice but settled on these five..

Turbine Generator Exhausts - Platform construction site.

From my brother's pictures taken during WWII.

Aerial View - Attack on the Italian Fleet - Taranto 1940

I have no idea how my brother obtained this picture. There is one very similar in the Imperial War Museum. I have to assume that he obtained from a Fleet Air Arm pilot on the raid.

On a wet April day in 2010 I took some shots of and from the Clifton Suspension Bridge looking down in to the Avon Gorge.

Clifton Suspension Bridge and looking down the Avon Gorge

Avon Gorge from the Clifton Suspension Bridge

I am going to cheat with my last photo, I was not looking downwards but ....

Cody is!

For more downward views check out what others have done for Carmi's thematic-photographic-256.

At an Angle - Thematic Photography.

Angles creep into shots without you always being aware. I have several to meet Carmi's 'At an Angle' theme this week. I may have shown some of these before so let's see how many you can recognise.

Tall Ships - Hartlepool 2010

I'm sure that the angle of of this plane was not intended - did someone let go of the tail?

Nosedive - Mediterranean WWII

Cables on the Clifton side of Brunel's famous suspension bridge are at an angle too it seems.

Clifton Suspension Bridge - 2010

This big beast needs to have its jib at an angle when lifting heavy loads.

Balder - Heavy Lift Crane

The picture was taken during the construction of the Statfjord 'B' deck at Rosenberg Verft, Stavanger in the 1980s

This anchor is at an angle on the quayside in Copenhagen,

Anchor - Nyhavn, Copenhagen

Also at an angle because it was built that way is this Condeep test leg in Stavanger.

Troll test leg - 1980s.

Finally a picture that's out of this world.

Aurora on Jupiter  taken by the Hubble Telescope

Now that's an 'at an angle' shot that I would have loved to have taken.

For more angular momentum, please visit Carmi's blog at Thematic-photographic-212

Silhouette - Thematic Photography

Often photos you take turn out to be silhouettes although that may not be what you intended.

Gargoyle

When taken this came out all dark, so dark in fact you could only see a black shape, but as you can see I tinkered with it a bit. I also tried another on the same garden parapet.

Gargoyles (Yarm 2012)

The next picture comes from my brother's alum of pictures taken during the war. I can safely say no-one else can take this picture today.

Indian War Memorial, Port Tewfik, Egypt - 1940s

The monument silhouetted against the sky was destroyed by Egyptian troops during the war with Israel, in 1967 I think.

Closer to home is this shot I took of Brunel's famous bridge.

 Clifton Suspension Bridge

Finally a shot I took in Norway in the 1980s.

Pulpit Rock

And the same rock on a postcard.

Two silhouettes

For more dark outlines please visit Carmi's thematic-photographic-192-silhouette

Clifton to Leigh Down

A-Z Challenge – ‘C’

When William Vick, a wealthy Bristol wine merchant died in 1754 he left in his will £1000 to the Society of Merchant Venturers. This was to be invested until it reached the sum of £10,000 sufficient, he believed, to build a toll-free bridge across the Avon Gorge from Clifton to Leigh Down. It was to be over a hundred years later before a bridge spanned the Gorge. 

 Clifton Suspension Bridge on a rainy April day.

In 1829 the committee of commissioners appointed by the Merchant Venturers announced a competition for an ‘Iron Suspension Bridge at Clifton Down.’ The competitors had seven weeks to design the highest and longest suspension bridge in the world. Thomas Telford was to advise the Commissioners on the designs submitted. Among the entrants was the 23 year-old Isambard Kingdom Brunel who had submitted four designs. 

Telford rejected all the designs submitted including those by Brunel. The committee had little choice but to invite Telford, the foremost civil engineer of the day, to design the bridge himself which he did in a just three weeks. During 1830 there were arguments against Telford’s proposal and alternatives proposed. By the middle of the year although Parliament had granted permission for the bridge the money raised was less than Telford’s estimated cost. In October the committee decided to hold another competition with a submission deadline in the middle of December. The competitors this time included some previous entrants, local designers, Telford and Brunel.

After Telford’s design was set aside because of its cost, the short list down to four in order of merit were: Smith and Hawkes, Brunel, Brown and Rendel. After Brunel had made representations to the judges and following alterations to his design Brunel was declared the winner. The stage was set for the erection of the Clifton Suspension Bridge with a span between the two towers of 214m/702ft with Brunel as the Project Engineer.

The foundation stone for the bridge was laid on 27 August 1836. Progress was slow in the following years and in 1843 funds were running out. Brunel stopped production.

In September 1859 Brunel died. The Institution of Civil Engineers now stepped in wanting to finish the bridge as a monument to Brunel and to save the red faces of the engineering profession. With a year a new company was formed and the money required for finishing the bridge acquired. 

The bridge was completed in 1864 and opened on 8^th December that year. It had taken 110 years for Vick’s dream to become ‘Brunel’s Bridge.’ 

Photo by R Neil Marshman ( Creative Commons A-S A 3.0 unported license)

This iconic symbol of Bristol is famous worldwide - over 200 years after Brunel’s death.