Preferably with muddy shoes and a mildly aching back…
There are certain monuments in this world that have been photographed so often they must feel quite exhausted by it all. If bridges could sigh, I suspect the good people’s favourite — the stately Bandra–Worli Sea Link — would do so at approximately 6:47 every evening, just as the sky begins its flamboyant descent into oranges and pinks and the tripods emerge like metallic mushrooms after rain.
It was on such an evening that I found myself seized by what can only be described as photographic restlessness. Tea had been consumed, office emails ignored, and the light — oh, the light — was performing rather theatrically outside the window. So I did what any sensible photographer would do: I grabbed my camera bag (which weighs roughly the same as a sack of potatoes) and set off without much of a plan, save for a vague notion that I should try and photograph the Sea Link in a manner that did not resemble a postcard from 2011.
Now, the Sea Link at sunset is not exactly undiscovered territory. It has been shot wide, shot tight, shot from rooftops, promenades, moving cars, and probably from the occasional optimistic drone that met a tragic end. One suspects there are more photographs of it at golden hour than there are actual commuters crossing it.
When I arrived, the usual congregation had assembled. There were people and photographers aligned with military precision, lenses pointed westward with unwavering devotion. A gentleman in a fluorescent T-shirt was explaining “long exposure” to his visibly unenthused companion. The bridge, meanwhile, stood there in quiet dignity, cables fanning out like a harp waiting to be played by the sun.
And that is when it occurred to me — rather inconveniently — that if I stood where everyone else was standing and pointed my camera in precisely the same direction, I would produce precisely the same photograph.
A groundbreaking realisation, I know.
So instead of joining the regiment, I wandered….
By the time the last usable light had dissolved into a respectable grey, I had a handful of frames that felt less like souvenirs and more like conversations. The Sea Link had not changed, of course. It remained elegant, composed, faintly smug in its photogenic superiority.
But I had changed the way I looked at it.
And that, I suspect, is the real craft — not finding new places (though that is delightful), but finding new ways of seeing old ones. The world’s most photographed bridge does not require another admirer. It requires, now and then, a quiet conspirator willing to see it slightly differently.
Preferably with muddy shoes and a mildly aching back.
Tea afterwards, of course, is non-negotiable.
