Day 354 - Needs no embellishment

This is a very simple photograph of the Fredericton walking bridge at night. With the Olympus on its trusty tripod, I set the aperture at f8 to get the best depth of focus possible, the shutter speed at (I think) 10 seconds to let in just enough light, and then pressed the release.

I could have slowed the shutter even further (to 15 seconds) but that would have allowed so much light into the lens that the photo would have looked almost like a day-time shot. I wanted darkness. I wanted the lamps on the bridge, and their reflections in the river, to stand out. And I wanted to be able to show only so much of the bridge's structure as would be allowed by the available light.

In other words, I wanted the photograph to show what my eyes could see while I stood there looking. I had never really thought about it before but, as amazing as our eyes are, we can't slow down their shutter speed the same way we can with a camera. And sometimes it's fun to use the camera's abilities to make a brighter photo. But other times, what our eyes see needs no such embellishment.