The weekend had two early morning photography starts, 03:00am wake up to travel near Gloucester on the A38 at Berkeley Bridge to capture the bridge itself being replaced.
This is a hi-vis job in every sense of the term; the A38 is closed as is the rail line underneath. Few will understand the level of endeavour that goes into civil engineering work such as this and it is an honour to be commissioned by Dyer & Butler to photograph it.
The photography can be challenging, I use a Petzl helmet to keep the camera from being obstructed but, hard hat, safety glasses, gloves, boots and oranges don’t make for a comfortable shoot. But I love doing it.
The engineering work involved removal of the existing structure with the crane carrying it over the hotel. This was to be followed by preparation of the bridge to accept the new beams which were waiting in a large convoy of trucks.
Photographing With Radio Triggers
Given that it was a secure site I was able to set one Nikon up on a tripod to shoot wide and be triggered manually via a radio trigger whilst I was free to roam with a further camera capturing different angles. This meant that I could add value and I used a similar setup the following day as the new beams were being placed.
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A commission such as this, shooting over two days, generates a lot of photographs. Ideally the images will be both records of the event but strong enough to be re-used in the company’s ongoing marketing.
The crane is rated to 600 tonnes, the existing bridge measured around 94 as it was being lifted out.
Gallery of Berkeley Bridge Engineering Photography
