Devil's Bridge

Author's Comments

The bridge itself is the photograph everyone wants, and that is the problem. There is a line. Not a metaphor, an actual line, of people waiting their turn to walk out onto the arch and have someone make their portrait against the drop. I have stood in it. I understand the appeal. But the photograph I keep coming back for is not the one with a person on the span. It is the bridge from the side, in the first hour after sunrise, when the eastern light rakes across the sandstone and the arch throws its own shadow against the cliff behind it. November is good. February is better. The air is cold and clean and the red rock goes the color of rust and ember, and the formation reads as what it actually is - a piece of geology, not a stage. You have to be there before eight. I mean genuinely before eight, which in winter means starting the hike in the dark with a headlamp and reaching the viewpoint as the first light hits. By nine the line has formed and the magic of the place has been replaced by the logistics of it. A wide lens for the full span and the valley behind it. A longer lens if you want to isolate the arch against the layered red rock in the distance, which I think is the stronger composition and almost no one makes it. The trail is not difficult but it is exposed, and the last scramble up to the bridge level is steeper than the photographs suggest. Bring water. Bring patience. Bring the willingness to leave without the obvious shot if the obvious shot is not the one the morning is offering you.

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