The University bridge over the Torrens river is an appealing location currently blighted by a safety barrier, which surrounds a maintenance work in progress. I regularly use the pathway and some form of barrier / safety equipment has been here since I arrived in Adelaide (Oct2016).
Whatever the reasons it seems remiss of those in charge to leave this beauty spot in a state of disrepair. It's one of the 'definitive' images of Adelaide and lots of people take photos here (including wedding snaps) so the lasting impression people currently take home with them is a little marred by the issue apparent in the photo below.
For whatever reason this repair has been neglected for a long time. I arrived in spring and now its June. The season has definitely shifted into Autumn, and I'm fully anticipating the leaves on many of these trees to drop quite soon. So I've been running out of time to get a 'clean' version of this view.
Part of my urgency is this view would fit nicely into a series of images I've been making of Adelaide, all of those are leafy and green. Getting a view when the trees are bare would be an issue. So I decided to take the photo now and have a go at 'fixing it in post'.
To be fair I am good with image editing softwares. I have used lots of 2D compositing packages including photoshop, gimp, pixelmator, shake and nuke. Still there were no guarantees as it was a significant and central area of image to rebuild. But past experience gave me the confidence to expect a good result.
Confidence is important as I knew this was going to take me some time to complete. Though to be fair as the hours of my Saturday ticked by i did begin to rue my decision. In fact at one point it began to seem such a large task I went back up to the bridge to see if they'd made any progress with repairs. But that was a vain hope. So I returned to my workstation and eventually finished the job late in the evening.
The result is quite pleasing. It is a far larger fix than I usually care to do, as it took most of a precious Saturday to complete. Time when I would rather have been out taking more photos. If it had been about a single isolated image it's unlikely I would have invested so much time. But the desire to get another picture for my series of pictures was strong, and so the extra effort seemed worthwhile.
Should the barriers come down anytime soon I shall go back because I have the sneaking idea there's a better picture to be found. Mind you I won't hold my breath waiting for the repair to be done. Since I took this image more red tape, cones and fences have arrived. This time on the other side of the river.
UPDATE 5 Jun 2018.. So one year on and the barriers are still present!!