"Burnside Bridge 4"

Jimmy Coble

Photo Entry #4

10/6/15

This photograph, taken in 1862 by Alex Gardner just after the Battle of Antietam, shows a bridge that was destroyed in the battle. This photograph uses a number of Szarkowski’s components. Being that it is a picture called “Burnside Bridge 4,” this photograph is very much of the thing itself. The bridge is front-and-center in the photograph. It shows the wear and deterioration that came from the battle. One can only imagine the violence that occurred on and around the bridge.

There are also three figures in the top third of the picture in the middle. These look like they are veterans. This is interesting, because without them, it looks like a picture of the bridge, but the people are the focus of the photograph. One can assume that they are soldiers. Two of them have much darker uniforms than the one in the foreground, so it seems like it is two Union soldiers talking to a Confederate soldier. That is a detail that Gardner intentionally left in the photograph.

The vantage point that Gardner used is obvious. He is pretty high, taking a picture from almost a birds-eye-view at what seems to be tree level. This vantage point lets the viewer see much more about the landscape behind and around the bridge than if Gardner were standing on the ground.

As the first photograph was taken in the 1820s, photography was a relatively new form of documenting life. Photographs were not yet seen as an art form; they were a tool to see reality as it was. This picture definitely does that, but by using these techniques that I mentioned, it becomes an art piece. 

Gardner, Alex. "Burnside Bridge 4." September 1862. NPS. http://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery.htm?id=2412F92B-1DD8-B71C-0728A9DF066D2649 Accessed 10/6/15.