Vermont Covered Bridge... an Alternate View

WernerG

Wicked_Dark

looks like the Connecticut...which bridge? one was under construction for a long time.

WernerG

That's the Mad River flowing under the Waitsfield Covered Bridge, aka The Great Eddy Bridge. The distance expansion of the wide angle view makes the river look much wider than it is. This bridge has been here a long time. It only gets worked on when an RV or truck tries to drive through it and tears out the roofing structure.

TenThirteen

Great perspective!

Did you purposely include the person in the left of the shot? It's distracting for me, and I think it would look a lot better if you cloned it out. Otherwise very nice work!

Richard

I rather like the person, or at least his smallness. Adds scale, IMO.

Wicked_Dark

ah, it's the illusion of width that did it. One bridge over the Connecticut was inaccessible for a long time; a bummer if you were counting on it and had to drive a long way around. Is it the same Mad River that flows through the Plymouth, NH area? I'll have to check a map.

WernerG

Tne Thirteen and Richard, thank you for commenting, Yes I purposely went far enough over to include him. He came and sat down as I was setting up. I thought that even sitting that far to the side, he would be the only bit of visual interest in the foreground besides the underside of the bridge and would add a human scale. I was actually hoping that he would be a distraction from the relative emptyness of the rest of the lower foreground. I would rather he had sat futher to the right, but you get what you get. The irony is he was only there for the first of the 3 rows in the pano, then decided to go for swim. By the second row, which overlapped him, he was gone but his gear was there. The stitcher cut off his head! I had a choice, erase him and let the overlapping shot dominate or erase a hole into the overlapping shot and show him with his head. I chose the latter.

WernerG

Wicked, the Mad River runs north out of Granville Gulf (where Moss Glen Falls is) through Warren, Waitsfield and Moretown, then into the Winooski River.

black mamba

I, too, would rather not see the person in the scene. That, of course, is purely subjective as to preference. By your own statement, though, the influence of the lens characteristic gives a distorted perception as to the actual dimension of certain elements in the scene and that also applies to the person. His relevance as a reliable measure of scale is nill.

Tom

Richard

black mamba wrote: »

I, too, would rather not see the person in the scene. That, of course, is purely subjective as to preference. By your own statement, though, the influence of the lens characteristic gives a distorted perception as to the actual dimension of certain elements in the scene and that also applies to the person. His relevance as a reliable measure of scale is nill.

Tom

Well, for me reliability doesn't matter at all. Wide angle shot panos give an illusion of hugeness that has little to do with reality. Adding an element that is distorted to be smaller than it is only adds to the illusion that the bridge is gigantic, which I assume to be the intent of the shot. But as you say, it's all subjective.

kathiemt

I like it - definitely a different perspective on a bridge. I like the person there - it does add an element of dimensions in size.

WernerG

This is a fascinating discussion, thank you very much. The actual purpose of this pano was to study the use of this particular projection for wide panos, (recti-perspective, aka Vedutsimo, aka Pannini). No matter how wide the image, all diagonals leading to the same vanishing point are rendered as straight lines. So this is really about the diagonal lines, the bridge, it's shadow, it's reflection. That's also why I had the bridge's diagonals run to the upper corners, to strengthen the diagonals, even though the last few cross-timbers are very curved. So if the person distracts from that intent, it's a bad thing.

But it is also a very wide pano, 220 deg horizontally, and there is not much going on any where else. The buildings, actually just a stone's throw away, appear too far away to be interesting to look at. The person is about it for having something for the eyes to rest on other than the bridge. I would have hoped that the bridge diagonals would be strong enough to dominate the scene while the person just added a bit of visual interest off to the side. Note that there is nothing on the right, not even a decent rock.

Dogdots

I agree ... this is fascinating. Really made me stop and pause taking the whole photo in. Ones eye is certainly drawn to the bridge above them Took me awhile to even notice the guy sitting to the side.