nickeykolev
FollowAt the "Devil's bridge" on the Arda river, near Kardzhali, Bulgaria.
There are a lot of legends about the Devil's bridge, buil...
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At the "Devil's bridge" on the Arda river, near Kardzhali, Bulgaria.
There are a lot of legends about the Devil's bridge, built in early 16th century. One of them, which I like most says, that at the time, it was so hard to build a bridge over the river, that all attempts were unsuccessful, until a young architect stroke a deal with the devil, who would help him build the bridge, if the architect manages to incorporate the devil's face in it. For all others surprise, the bridge was done and still stands. You can actually see the devil's face in the stones reflection under the arch (in the middle) if you rotate the image 90 degrees.
Give it a try and let me know in the comments :)
Read less
There are a lot of legends about the Devil's bridge, built in early 16th century. One of them, which I like most says, that at the time, it was so hard to build a bridge over the river, that all attempts were unsuccessful, until a young architect stroke a deal with the devil, who would help him build the bridge, if the architect manages to incorporate the devil's face in it. For all others surprise, the bridge was done and still stands. You can actually see the devil's face in the stones reflection under the arch (in the middle) if you rotate the image 90 degrees.
Give it a try and let me know in the comments :)
Read less
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Behind The Lens
Location
The photo is taken at a sweet location, called "The Devil's Bridge" in South Bulgaria. It's an old stone bridge, built in the 16th century, covered with mystery and legends. It is called "The Devil's bridge", because you can see the devil's face when looking at the bridge and it's reflection in the water.Time
Since it was late autumn, completely out of season and a little bit of cloudy and chilly, luckily for me at 10 in the morning there weren't any other tourists there :)Lighting
Well, actually the lighting that day wasn't giving me so much opportunities for something spectacular. The location with the bridge is one of the famous spots in south Bulgaria and it has some fantastic composition potential when the sky is clear. But that wasn't the case that day, since the sky was very cloudy and the whole scene looked a little grim and washed out, with little to no contrast in colors. While descending to the spot, I was hoping for some fog or even darker scene to get it as mystical as the story of the bridge is, but it wasn't the case.Equipment
I used a Nikon d610 with a Samyang 85mm lens. The picture is taken from hand.Inspiration
Because of the low-contrast light and the overall grimness of the scene, I couldn't play around so much with the landscape that day. That gave me the opportunity to focus more on shooting little objects, like composing the bridge with small river stones, different perspectives with the water and surroundings. While I was playing around, I just saw Mariyana sitting on that rock in the water, trying to find the Devil's face and I was just hit by the composition. Those moments are one in a million. I didn't want her to know that I was photographing her in that position, as I wanted the scene to be as spontaneous as possible. The final result is one of the best photos that I took :)Editing
I almost always use Lightroom for contrast and light corrections. In the current case I wanted pop out the subject in front with upping a little the whites in the photo, so the foreground tones take the most out of the scene. With added a step or two of additional blur for the background, that is the whole post-processing with the photo.In my camera bag
Upping up my game, I am now shooting with a Nikon D610 with a Tamron 24-70 G2 lens. Along with the Tamron, I carry around a Samyang 14mm 2.8 lens for night sky shots and wider scenes. Normally I always have a lightweight tripod with me.Feedback
I love when I'm hit by those spontaneous scenes. Sometimes when I see such a scene, I forget about everything else, the frame is right there, the light is perfect just exactly for this one capture, if though it doesn't fit for anything else. When you take your time, just walk around without a plan what to do and just observe and play with small things, small objects, you just see a composition which hits you. And if you are comfortable enough to quickly setup your exposure to what you see in the moment the results can be magnificent!