Picture a perfectly clear summer day. I'm driving up the new Skyway deck of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on a tour of the new span. To my left is the old bridge, rigid, gray and awkward. To my right are stunning views of the bay.

Once out of the car, I want to spread my arms like a high-flying gull scanning far horizons.

Miniature container ships pass under the Golden Gate heading for the Oakland waterfront. Toy sailboats tip. My camera freezes the experience in time. It captures and isolates moments for future contemplation. I'm standing at a gap in the span. Hundreds of feet to the west, the Skyway emerges from Treasure Island heading east. A single tower rises 525 feet from the deck and workers scurry everywhere.

I look down – 150 feet to the surface of the water. Fifteen stories. No boundaries. I was just down there looking up from dark, choppy blue-green water to where I now stand. From here, the surface of the water appears as a greenish milky aqua. Calm. Through my lens, I see the shadows cast from the morning sun shining through rust-colored scaffolding.

I wait for a boat to come into the frame. That's one experience in a split second.

The image creates a separate experience, a memory of that moment. With attention, an image transforms. The flattened plane reveals shapes, lines, color and the illusion of foreground, middle ground and background.

A boat penetrates from the top edge just off center and provides a contrast in scale to the diagonal scaffolding and bridge in the foreground. Strong diagonals create triangular forms that dominate the composition of the photograph.

Triangles dominate bridges designed to respond to the demands of the natural world with flexibility and strength. The triangular forms in the photograph represent a metaphor for triangles hidden within the structure of this new bridge. And that's what I find compelling.

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Stephanie Taylor, a Sacramento artist, graduated from UCLA with a degree in history and a focus on political philosophy.

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