Most nights, Racquel and I walk along the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington. We go to take in the sunset on the waterfront. We time it so we reach the Grant Street Pier, or beyond, before the sun drops behind the hills. Some nights the sky gives us nothing. However, this wasn’t one of those.

The BNSF rail bridge crosses the river near our apartment, at the far end of the waterfront park. I’ve taken a lot of photos of this bridge, but it still holds my attention. Actually, it’s not just the bridge. What really holds my attention is everything moving around it. This place is filled with energy.

On this night, a stack train rolled across, containers two high, and a little later a tugboat named Taya T came through, pushing barge 42 with its wheelhouse lights already on. As the light was nearly gone, a Union Pacific locomotive crossed with its headlight on, the orange fading to blue behind it.

And The Foreground Tells Its Own Story

You’ll notice that most of these were shot through something. Purple flowers along the path, leaves from a tree near the shore, or ivy and brush. A sunset behind a bridge can seem flat on its own. But when you put something soft and out of focus in front of it, the eye has a place to start before traveling back to the steel and the sky. It also tells you where I was standing, on the path, walking past all of it on the way to another view. The foreground tells its own story.

Racquel has taught me to love a foreground. Her track images frequently include a foreground story that provides context for the athlete’s motion. So I find myself doing it more often now.

The one exceptions in these photos today came when the Taya T moved into open water under a long streak of pink cotton candy cloud. Nothing belonged in front of that.

We’ll likely be back down there tonight. The bridge will be where it always is. Everything else is up for grabs.

Jeff Turner

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