Festival of Bridges #15 ~ Irish-American Connections

The connections between Ireland and America are immense and I can’t but think of them when bringing you Rod Figaro’s contribution to The Festival of Bridges.

Rod is a professional photographer, based in New York, and you can find his excellent website here. Bridges feature a lot in Rod’s work and when I asked him about this he said:

As for my fascination for bridges, particularly the ones in New York, their sheer sizes alone can easily capture your attention, and one can never get used to that.

Here is the magnificent photograph that he sent me:

Brooklyn Bridge, New York

For years, as I’ve stood on the Promenade here in Tramore, I’ve felt that Brooklyn Bridge and America were what were glittering on the horizon at the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.  By sheer coincidence, we now have a bustling beachfront restaurant on the Prom, called Brooklyn, with the bridge logo!

Brooklyn Cafe, Tramore, Co. Waterford.

It would be impossible for me to leave Rod Figaro’s photograph of Brooklyn Bridge without highlighting the extent to which it is a bridge with a huge connection to poetry.  Here are a few lines from the great Walt Whitman poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” which celebrates the exact spot where Brooklyn Bridge, which was completed in 1883, now stands.

The current rushing so swiftly, and swimming with me far away;
The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them;
The certainty of others–the life, love, sight, hearing of others.

Others will enter the gates of the ferry, and cross from shore to shore;
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide;
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the
heights of Brooklyn to the south and east;
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an
hour high;
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others
will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring in of the flood-tide, the falling
back to the sea of the ebb-tide.

I sincerely hope that one day I will finally get to see Brooklyn Bridge with my very own eyes and meet Rod Figaro there to go on the photo-shoot he has so kindly promised.

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The Festival of Bridges runs until October 31st. Submissions are now closed. 

 

 

 

 

A Festival of Colour ~ Gatherings from Ireland # 299

Festival of Colour, Creativity and Connection

The Festival of Colour, Creativity and Connection which I’m hosting here on Social Bridge to brighten November continues to deliver warmth and surprises from all round the world. I have been a following Susan on www.suzassippi.blogspot.com for some time and was thrilled to receive this email and photograph from her.

I hope you enjoy her contribution as much as I have and feel the extent to which she is in touch with colour in every sense.

Hello  Jean,

 I love your idea of the fall festival of colour.  I am sending one of my recent photographs that says to me it is a festival of colour—I took it on the first day of November this year, on what was actually a lovely fall day with sunshine and blue skies.  What I like about this photograph is the subject, as well as the play of light and colour, but inclusion of all those neutral and drab, but full of texture, tones of browns and shadows amongst the light.

The building is a community house in Pontotoc, Mississippi, and was built in 1935 through President Roosevelt’s New Deal Administration, specifically, the Emergency Relief Administration which put unemployed people to work to the benefit of the community.  When I first read your post about the festival, and then later was preparing my photographs for some research, this one jumped out at me—so here it is…

Fall Festival of Colour
Photo: Susan Allen

I hope that this wonderful photograph will inspire you to participate in the Festival and share a photograph, poem, prose, song, sketch … anything which speaks to you of Colour, Creativity and Connection.  Please send your submissions to me at jeantubridy@aol.com. I look forward to sharing them.