Steve Fredrick

Photography

Copyright ©2000-2011

The content of this site, including the text and photographs, are the exclusive property of Steve Fredrick.   
This means you are welcome to view and enjoy; however,  you do NOT have rights to copy, store, print, or republish any of the content without the written permission of Steve Fredrick.

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Covered Bridges

Covered bridges conjure up sights and sounds of days gone by.  During  the eighteenth century in eastern  part of the US commerce was growing and there was a need to be able to reliably transport goods across the often flooded creeks and rives.  The most plentiful building material for bridges was wood.  But left exposed, the life of the timbers was quite short.  While covered bridges could provide protection from passing storms for travelers, the real reason for the covering is to protect the bridge's wood support structure, its truss,  from the weather to extend the life of the bridge.

Taking pictures of local covered bridges started as a photographic self-assignment.  My original goal was to make a good image of each bridge.   I soon discovered that not all bridges are located in photogenic locals.  That some bridges are located where they are never in good light.  That there are many distracting road signs, power  and telephone poles and  wires located near covered bridges.  And that around many of the bridges,  and along the water ways they cross, there can be a lot of trees and underbrush.  This last item meant that the best time to get a clean view of these bridges is when most of the leaves are off the trees.   So the goal changed a bit: Where possible to create a good image and for the others to simply document the bridge and its present day environment. (Author's note: Sufficient time has passed since I first started this project that a number of bridges have undergone significant change. In a few cases I have tried to document that.)

Just in case you are looking to find a covered bridge; at the bottom of each page, where I have the data, are  the longitude and latitude for the bridges on that page. Note, these are in degrees, minutes, and decimal minutes (and not seconds). (No warrantee is implied in providing this data. Use at your own discretion.)