Under An Icon

• Prize
  Bronze in Architecture/Bridges
• Photographer
  Peter Ogden
• Technical Info
  Iso400 18-135mm@18mm F/10 1/200s
• Photo Date
  October 30th 2024

The Sydney Harbour Bridge never fails to make my jaw drop, even when I travel across it four days a week on my work commute. The ‘Coat hanger’, as it’s affectionately known Down Under, has stood since the early 1930s and looks like it could stand for another 100 years. That’s only apparent when you look beneath that iconic shape and marvel at the engineering that has gone into it. The amount of steel is quite mind-boggling. Two million rivets were used, and it looks like each and every one was put to good use.

Australia is a landscape unique in its savagery and spectacle. Being UK born, I first arrived in Perth and that first experience saw me in the Nambung National Park whilst using a big stick to fend off brown snakes. I was the art director on a commercial photography shoot – keeping one eye on the back of the camera, the other firmly on the red dirt around the tripod. That juxtaposition, the incredibly beautiful landscape combined with the incredibly scary natural critters, has fascinated me ever since.