I took this late on a February afternoon, with the sun low in the sky on the other side of the bridge. Clouds kept partially obscuring it, but I kept getting some terrific light on the railway arches, but no train! It finally arrived (on time), and I got this image. I must admit that it needed a bit of post processing as it was slightly muddy looking, and boost in the saturation was needed to get it a bit more like what I saw (or wanted to see!).

After posting it on Flickr, someone suggested I convert it to black and white. I’d initialy shied away from that as it meant losing the lovely colours. However, it did allow me to go for a completely different look to the image. Some curves adjustments, and a slight vignette made this more of a silhouette, and the difference is quite striking.

The bridge spans are now largely in shadow and have become a more dominant part of the composition, more so than before as their colouration before was quite soft and subtle. Before, they were perhaps just part of the overall scene, but the vignette has darkened the foreground and has had the effect of drawing the eye to the lighter bit of sky in the middle of the image, which is where the bridge is.

Which do I prefer? I’m really not sure, I could look at both images tomorrow and have a different opinion. I’m edging towards the monochrome, but ask me again next week…….