This bridge connects the "Great" and "Small-East" of 16th century Hoorn. This was the location of the old Eastern City Gate, a beautiful building torn down in the 19th century. It also served as a sluice, to protect the lower parts of Hoorn.
The whole situation was renovated last year, new sluice doors, new bridge deck, new stones etc. I have walked on the floor of this thing when the dams were still up.
In the background is the "Karperkuil", where there used to be shipwharfs and the Spanish Duke of Alfa was supposedly defeated by the Hoorn fleet in the 80 year battle with Spain. I think that this battle was further back (behind the houses, but the defeat was real. The Duke's massive sword and drinking cup can be seen in the Westfries Museum.
Anyone interested in visiting Hoorn, PM me, when I have the time I'd be happy to show you around. It is well worth a visit!
I waited for someone interesting to cross. Without people on it, it looks uninteresting.
Cameratech: On tripod, selftimer, about 50mm eqv, 1/3 stop overexposed (bracketing), soft sharpening, auto whitebalance, autofocus on bridge. Careful attention to compostion, not snapshooted.
Postprocessing: Pick out of 24 photo's and 8 edits on this one alone. Tried black and white, several tonings, several crops.
But this one was the best and simplest: cropped, resampled, unsharp mask (200%, .4, 1), save for the web. The balance could have been much better with the use of two images (1 stop under & overexposed) and Fred Miranda's Dynamic Range Increase Action (very cool action), but that would have been illegal. For normal pictures I now like to go through the DRI routine.
BTW: I know it is dark but it certainly is not too dark. It is created on a calibrated monitor!
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Your lighting is good here, adding a certain glow over things. The mother and child do not get much focus, though you highlight them in your title. There may also be some other vantage points that provide a more interesting perspective that include more diagonals; that's a choice, and yours is valid, but I'm just looking for more interest here.
This is one of those unique bridge shots that can really only be taken in a few areas. I like the background, and I like the ripple detail in the water. The people, however, are a bit dark and blend into the builiding directly behind them.
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