On Devils and Long-Horn

When we found out that things were going to be relaxed a weekend earlier than we’d expected, Ann and I immediately got to thinking about what we wanted to do.  While we didn’t want to go crazy and do anything really risky, we knew we could now drive outside of our district on the weekend and not have to be home by early afternoon.  After deciding we definitely wanted to get out, but not necessarily roam in-town, I set out for finding us a destination.

My first thought was to continue our road-tours of the greater area to find out what is out there.  We’ve watched several videos from Portugal 365, which is a YouTube channel where the guy flies a drone around different parts of Portugal, often taking driving loops through parts of the country and identifying where the drone flights are.  I’ve copied down the place locations for several of the videos, knowing they’d make great driving loops and we could check out the photography opportunities on our own.  So I decided to trace the route for one of them that starts not too far from here.

Well, as I was making my way from the various towns on the show’s list of towns in Google Maps, my eye saw dropped down to a red drop on the map that said Ponte da Misarela (Ponte do Diablo).  Who knows what the first part said, but I knew exactly what the second part said - Bridge of the Devil.  I had to check it out.  

Zooming in on the bridge and converting it to satellite view, I realized that it was a bridge at the end of a trail, perhaps a quarter to a half mile hike.  After a bit more searching on the web, it looked like an interesting enough site for us to make a photo trip of it.  I chatted a bit with Ann and we decided that a nice little photo excursion to get us using our gear again (oh was that painful) and at the end of a short hike (boy do my feet tell me it’s been way too long) was just the thing we needed.  So Sunday morning, after a leisurely wake up and breakfast, we were off on the hour drive to the bridge.  For us it wasn’t particularly early, but it seemed that way for everyone else.  Traffic was light (read: nonexistent) on the country road, so I was able to appreciate at least a bit of the scenery.

After taking a bit to figure out where best to park (we had 3 options), Ann and I were on the trail.  It wasn’t rough by any means and, while it felt good to have the hiking boots on for the first time in a year, the rough rocks reminded us that it had been a year.  Thank goodness we’d picked an easy trail that wasn’t too long.  It was a good reminder that daily walks are fine, but they don’t fully get you prepared for hiking on very uneven surfaces (even walks here in Portugal).  

After a short walk, with a few stops to enjoy the views and appreciate the sound of running falls, we were there.  We’re finding out that much of Portugal’s landscape consists of these deep ravines in the mountains where you can’t always get down to the river.  Ponte da Misarela is a medieval bridge built some time between 1100 and 1300.  You can see why it was built to make passage from one side of the ravine to the other easier.  Unfortunately, there’s quite a bit of underbrush, which makes clear photographs difficult.   Also the steep mountainside means the entire hillside is in shadow, which in some ways made the base exposure easier, it makes the sky a nightmare to deal with exposure-wise

Fortunately, I’d brought my graduated filters, which I bought before moving to Portugal and hadn’t used yet.  I wasn’t really expecting any award winning photographs on Sunday, instead I hoping to just go through the routine of seeing, working with the camera and its various controls two or three times.  Getting to pull out my graduated filters (the one above included using a 3-stop hard-edged filter) was icing on the cake so to speak.  Of course I also got to use a neutral density filter to add some movement to the water fall.  

With Limited locations on the rocks to get a clean view of the bridge and falls, I decided to move over a bit (which meant a bit of a scrabble) and focus in on part of the bridge and this lovely tree on the far side.

It’s a calmer composition that I hope shows a bit of the character of the bridge and surrounding area.

And, as I was developing the above image later, I decided it was worth examining in black and white.  If part of this exercise was to practice my shooting skills, why not my developing skills too?

While neither image is what I’d call entirely successful, they do have a bit of quality that might make returning to the bridge worthwhile at some future date.  If I could only have had mist behind the bridge . . . .

Ann and started out at the bridge and looking around the other side with very little luck.  So just as I finished the above photos, Ann started hew way down the slope to the rocks where I’d been photographing from.  As she set up for her shots, I realized that the sun was starting to clear the mountain ridge and shine light on the bridge and surrounding area.  So I went back to my original location to see what it was looking like.

Unfortunately I’d waited too long and I had to eliminate the foreground and very left side of the view in my framing.  The sun was blaring off the rocks and it was impossible to manage the contrast, so I cropped those areas from the image.  That meant a photograph that doesn’t show the water hitting the river bed, and a less well-defined left hand side of the image.  Still, the light penetrating through the tree tops and onto the bridge is nice, so re-doing an image from that spot was worth it. 

Afterwards I crossed the bridge and made a couple of images looking down at the rocks below, but they were unsuccessful to say the least.  And Ann was right - there wasn’t much in the way of images on the other side, so we started our hike back enjoying the sound of the water.

When we got back to the car we both had that good feeling of tiredness you get from moving around to make images.  Sure it was a short trip, and we definitely didn’t get any incredible images, but it was good to get out and to work with our hands.

And, about a minute after we’d hit the road back to Braga, we turned a corner and a farmer was walking his cows (I’d say a good 20 of them) down the road towards us. The sight of a heard of long-horned cows walking towards you as you round a sharp corner on the side of a mountain brings a bit of a startle.  The cows knew what was going on and kindly moved off to the side of the road (well, except for one smaller cow that wanted to go the other way and kept giving the farmer a “why should I walk that way?” Look).  As the cattle walked by our stopped car the we exchanged good-mornings and then we went on our way.

Not a bad morning.  Hopefully, the first of many.