Middle Covered Bridge

Author's Comments

The bridge sits closer to the village than most of its kind, which is the thing that makes it work. Most covered bridges in Vermont live out at the edges of things, on back roads where they belong to the woods more than to people. This one belongs to Woodstock itself. You photograph it with the village in frame whether you want to or not, and after a while I stopped trying to crop the town away and started letting it in. The Town lattice truss is the architectural detail worth slowing down for. The diagonal members repeat in a pattern that becomes almost hypnotic when you frame tight on the portal, and the morning light coming in low from the east picks out the geometry in a way that midday flattens. I tend to start there, with the detail shots, before working my way down to the river path on the downstream side. The reflection is the obvious photograph and it is obvious for a reason. On a still morning in October, with the maples behind the bridge going through their color, the Ottauquechee gives you back nearly everything in the frame. Summer is greener and quieter. Winter, when the holiday lights are on and the snow has settled on the roof, is the version most people come for, and it is genuinely worth the cold. Watch for cars. The bridge still carries traffic, and the road is narrow.

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