I am a little obsessed with bridges. On drives across country, I will go out of my way in order to cross an old covered bridge miles from Interstate and plan a route so I can drive over a famous bridge. My photo collection includes decades worth of bridge photos from all angles, and of all types of bridges. One of my favorite novels, Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin, includes some serious bridge plot points. Maybe growing up on an island made me appreciate bridges (along with ferries and trains that travel through tunnels).
Bridges also provide much fodder for metaphors, as symbols, and in categories beyond transporation. I won't even get into bridges in our cultures (songs, movies, books, SNL comedy bits, folk tales, yard decor, fish tanks, card game, idioms, etc.), but here are a few fantastic bridge photos for inspiration.
Workers taking their lunch break. Building of the Saint John's Bridge, Portland, OR, 1931.
These four men are hoping to pass a test to get jobs as painters at the Brooklyn Bridge. Their first task was to climb to the top of one of the pillars. An estimated 27 workers died building the bridge. Link here.
The most famous and oldest bridge in Florence Italy is the Ponte Vecchio, literally "the old bridge." Link here.
The Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge is the longest bridge in the world. Link here.
I could go on and on, but I will stop. However, here are a few links, if you are as crazy as I am for bridges:
Guess what today's prompt is!
That's right--ice cream!
Kidding!
It's bridges.
Go outside and paint a bridge near you. Hop in your car and drive to a train bridge that is no longer in use and take photos from all different angles. Write a poem in which bridges are used both literally and metaphorically. Write a piece of prose based on a memory of a bridge or based on some history of a bridge you research. Paper piece a bridge quilt block.
Or do something else completely. With a bridge. Or bridges.
A favorite movie of mine. You could say it is about a man who is literally crazy about bridges. Well, really just one bridge. You've never seen it? Go. Right. Now. And. Watch. It.
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