Skinny Bridge, a photo from Noord-Holland, South

Photographer's Note

The 'Skinny Bridge' is considered to be one of Amsterdam's most beautiful bridges. Thousands of lights illuminate it at night. The bridge is very popular with lovers, photographers and tourists.

Some local people say that the bridge was named after the Mager Sisters (mager is Dutch for skinny). These two well-to-do sisters lived on opposite sides of the river. They are said to have had the wooden bridge built to make it easier to visit one another.

The real explanation is that the bridge used to be so narrow that it was hard for two pedestrians to pass one another. When traffic along the Amstel increased, a wider one replaced the narrow bridge in 1871. The word 'Skinny' no longer applies to the bridge. As you can see from the photo, lorries now use it.

This photo was scanned, reduced and sharpened. I also tried blurring the sky to reduce noise.

sAner ha contrassegnato questa nota come utile

Critiques | Translate

chalcone (761) 2003-09-23 3:36

Very interesting colors reflected back by the water. The water actually looks metallic blue because of the blue sheen on it. The white bars of the draw bridge seem about to dissolve into the horizon's vanishing point, but well, reflective surfaces are hard to deal with in this kind of lighting situation. Still, the composition looks great!

sAner (112) 2005-01-23 14:24

I like the picture as I work in Amsterdam. I do think you should have cropped out the nasty buildings on the left and some of the water. That way the bridge would have been more 'in' the picture. Also, the whole picture seems a bit blue-ish. Didn't you try auto level or auto color? Good effort anyway. Good and informative note!

Gerrit (62042) 2009-08-27 8:18