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. 

 

 

 

 

Heart and Soul ~ Gatherings from Ireland # 311

Festival of Colour, Creativity and Connection

As the Festival of Colour, Creativity and Connection here on Social Bridge enters its final week, I am becoming more and more amazed by the way in which blogging has the capacity to create bonds right across the world.

Thanks to Anne-Marie, who is an American woman with Irish ancestry, I have been introduced to the work of her  highly talented photographer friend, Rod Figaro, http://www.figaroimages.com and brought to bridges in Central Park, New York ~ a place I would dearly love to visit.

Central Park, New York.
Photo: Rod Figaro

I particularly like the way Anne-Marie talks about photography and her words resonate very deeply, especially when I think of  my late father’s vast collection:

As we know, it is the heart and soul of the photographer that shines through in the photographs that move us and connect us.

Cental Park, New York.
Photo: Rod Figaro 

Should you wish to participate in this Festival of Colour, Creativity and Connection, please send me prose, poetry, artwork … anything that brings warmth and colour to your November life wherever you are. Please email me at jeantubridy@aol.com. I look forward to hearing from you!