Standing still and silent, the Coronado Bridge traverses the bay in a graceful curve, carrying workers and visitors back and forth to downtown. It is relatively new (1969), but an icon that represents San Diego as much as Balboa Park.

As a resident of Coronado, the bridge was the daily path home for me after a long day of work. In the summer months, the top of the bridge provides an endless view of blue shimmering waters. In the winter, the lights of Hotel Del glowed off to the left. In the between months, the drive home included the joy of driving right into a fabulous sunset.

Many residents of Coronado love their bridge and it was no surprise when I was commissioned by a lovely couple to create a large print of the bridge for their home. But how does one make a steel and concrete structure reflect the personality that the residents assign to this icon?

I began my task by scouting different locations from which to frame my shot. The view from downtown includes the island, but the bridge appears rather flat from that angle. I paddled into the bay and under the bridge with my camera in a water housing, but the enormity of the span was difficult to frame. Eventually, I settled on shot from the golf course.

Of course, shooting on a golf course presents its own challenges! It is impossible to do during the day for obvious reasons and I knew there was a likelihood of getting nailed by sprinklers in the early morning hours. But I had to try. So on an early morning in November when the temperatures were quite low and the sky had just the right level of high clouds, I headed out the door and drove over to the golf course.

In the dark, I cut across the 2nd and 3rd fairway until I was at the water’s edge. From here, one can see the full curve of the bridge with the Naval Shipyard in the background. I set up my tripod and camera and waited for the light show to begin. The only sound was the quiet hum of early morning commuters crossing the span before me. With a shiver, I wondered if Mother Nature would cooperate or whether I would have to try this morning after morning.

The sun began to light up the sky well before cresting the distant mountains in the east. Every moment that passed presented a different color combination into the inky sky and upon the clouds scattered above. It was like a slowly spinning kaleidoscope of nature’s emotions. As the sun got closer to showing its face, the waters in front of me changed from a deep black to a dark, fiery compliment of the sky above. Slicing through the middle of my frame was the dark, unmoving, and secure structure of the bridge.

Capturing an image of the sun rising is like tracking a bell curve. The potential builds until there is just a brief moment at the top when everything lights up perfectly. Just as quickly, the optimal light diminishes and is replaced by an overwhelming blast of sunlight as it crests the distant ridge. That optimal moment (the mean, as my enlightened niece would tell me) lasted for only about a minute. As I snapped away, I was fairly confident that I had the optimal framing and correct settings, which was good, because there really wasn’t time to change anything.

Almost immediately after the sun popped up, the sprinklers on the golf course went on, bringing an exclamation to the end of this outing. Dodging rain bird sprays back to the warmth of the car, I felt a happy glow, as much for the show that I just witnessed as the sense that I had nailed the shot I wanted. The end result was a large print on metal that now greets my clients as they enter the front door of their home.