I actually hate taking landscape pictures in summer. The light is flat and dull for so much of the day. To get light that casts defining shadows requires getting up very early or staying out fairly late.
The one alternative is to go into a shady spot where there’s sunlit space somewhere beyond and at the edge and shining through but nowhere so strong that it blows out the upper range of your light completely. Harder than it sounds, but the middle of a small river or creek is a good bet—if you’re really lucky you can even get what I found here, which is both reflections and a vague glimpse of the light below on the bed of the river.
To do all that, you need a bridge or a boat. In this case, a bridge, over the Brandywine River on the way into the Natural Lands Trust’s Cheslen Preserve. (Edit: actually, I realized that this photo is at their nearby Stroud Preserve, on the east branch of the Brandywine Creek, but Cheslen has a bridge over the Brandywine too. Try them both!)
The result feels like summer without the erasing blaze of the noon sun. Every time I look at this shot, I want to go lie down in the shade of one of those trees and read a book for a few hours.
Speaking of bridges, though, I’m constantly frustrated by the fact that bridge construction throughout this region is so comprehensively hostile to people looking for a scenic perspective. I understand why engineers building bridges for major highways don’t often build a walkway alongside—they don’t want people near that traffic, and often building a path that would get you there feels crazy or dangerous. But it wouldn’t really be that insane to have a path to the Girard Bridge on I-95 from Lincoln Financial Field or FDR Park in Philadelphia—and it provides a fantastic view of the Philadelphia skyline. The Platt Bridge off I-95 on the way to connect to the Schuylkill Expressway has a walkway already that’s sealed off—and I get again why the city doesn’t imagine a lot of natural foot traffic (the walkway doesn’t go anywhere, and up until recently the only thing there has been a refinery on one side and a junkyard on the other. But again, it’s a spectacular view, particularly at night. The Millard Tydings Memorial Bridge over the lower Susquehanna River is a stunning view, but on I-95 you’re generally focused just on not dying from some idiot changing lanes suddenly in front of you.
We build these soaring structures that give us views only for us to roar past as fast as we can in our cars, with never a thought about lingering and looking—and photographing. Bridges can put us for a moment in a place we otherwise never stand and we squander the privilege most of the time.