Black Hawk Bridge across the Mississippi River, Lansing, NE Iowa
While returning from a business trip last night I had to stop at the Black Hawk Bridge that crosses the Mississippi River in Lansing, Iowa. The light on the scene was just too good to be ignored. The website historicbridges.org describes this wonderful cantilevered truss design of the bridge as following: This bridge is among the most unusual and significant large scale cantilever truss bridges in the country, on account of its excellent historic integrity, relatively old age, increasing rarity, and unusual design.
It is a photo I always wanted to make while driving through the town of Lansing or across the bridge several times each year. Yesterday the time was right. No, I wasn’t standing on the railroad tracks, just right next to them, but using a wide angle, 16 mm focal length allows to include the tracks in the photo and make them part of the storytelling about traffic routes in the Mississippi Valley. Sure, it would be nice to have the real warm light just before sunset for a photo like this, but due to the steep bluffs that form the Mississippi Valley in northeast Iowa the sun sets almost an hour earlier on this side of the river.