2nd place
silver star award
> joSon
united states
title
75 Views The Golden Gate Bridge
Shooting the Bridge, I have run into many hidden challenges as well. Often the fog, wind, and stinging rain are so cold that I feel like I'm working in snow country. It's almost as if the bridge has her own private weather systems, which she swirls and commands to protect her secrets long before I can even finish setting up my tripod. Even something as simple as getting permission to access the bridge often seems like an insuperable task, whether I'm dealing with the City or with private home and office owners who sharing views of the bridge from their windows.
Most challenging of all, the Golden Gate Bridge is among the most frequently-photographed landmarks on earth: how then can I find fresh ways to capture her timeless beauty. This, in turn, means learning how to see the Golden Gate itself with fresh eyes--to transform a postcard landmark admired by millions into revelations frozen in time.
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entry description
These images in this gallery are from a larger work-in-progress titled Seventy-Five Views of the Golden Gate Bridge--a collection of black and white photographs inspired by the Japanese artist Hokusai's, Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. Following in Hokusai's footsteps, I' seek to capture the Golden Gate Bridge in a variety of seasons and weathers and moods. I often tell myself that the Golden Gate Bridge is like a marvelous movie star with an unlimited wardrobe: she uses the fog as evening gowns, clouds as hairstyles, and the waves as her high-heeled shoes. As the wind continually shifts her garments, I do my best to capture the show.Shooting the Bridge, I have run into many hidden challenges as well. Often the fog, wind, and stinging rain are so cold that I feel like I'm working in snow country. It's almost as if the bridge has her own private weather systems, which she swirls and commands to protect her secrets long before I can even finish setting up my tripod. Even something as simple as getting permission to access the bridge often seems like an insuperable task, whether I'm dealing with the City or with private home and office owners who sharing views of the bridge from their windows.
Most challenging of all, the Golden Gate Bridge is among the most frequently-photographed landmarks on earth: how then can I find fresh ways to capture her timeless beauty. This, in turn, means learning how to see the Golden Gate itself with fresh eyes--to transform a postcard landmark admired by millions into revelations frozen in time.
about the photographer
Award-winning photographer joSon was born in the Philippines to a Filipino mother and an African American father. Sent to live with his mother’s family in Vietnam at age ten, he was educated in a Buddhist temple in preparation for becoming a monk. “I thought that was my calling long before I saw life through the viewfinder,” joSon recollects. “But the truth is, I have never left the monk-hood. I just left the temple.” Today joSon is a professional photographer based in San Francisco whose work is collected by an international list of clients. His work has appeared in magazines including Scientific American, Outside, Conde Nast Traveler and Vogue. He as won awards from Photo District News (PDN), Communication Arts, and American Illustration and American Photography (AI-AP). As Sunset Magazine described joSon’s first monograph, joSon: Intimate Portraits of Nature, from Graphis Press in 2013: "Had Richard Avedon taken up gardening, he might have ended up with photos like this.”back to gallery