This picture happened entirely by (happy) accident. A friend and I were driving around one evening, trying to get to the bank of the Mississippi near a certain area, to photograph an entirely different bridge than this one. It wasn't an area we were very familiar with, and we didn't have a map, so we were just relying on intuition and random luck to guide us.
We found a road that looked like it went in the direction we wanted to go, and headed down it. It turned out to not be a road at all, but a driveway to a large waste-management facility. The place isn't really marked; if you need to know where it is, I guess, you'd know. Bu the time we realized we weren't on a public road, we were a few hundred feet from a gate with an occupied guard booth. Not yet knowing what the facility was, or whether they'd view our turning around and leaving as suspicious, we drove right up to the gate, and spoke to the young guy on duty.
He stepped out, and was quite polite as he inquired just what we wanted. We explained we were a little lost, and were trying to take photos down by the river. Did the "road" go thru, we asked, or could he give us directions to where we wanted to be? He asked us to wait a moment, headed back to the guardhouse, and made a brief phone call. A minute later, he gave us directions on how to get to the office parking lot, and told us to park near a certain landmark, where we'd be met by the night-shift supervisor. We thanked him, and drove in... still not sure where we were!
We made it where we were supposed to be, and met a pair of employees. One was the supervisor, to whom we again explained we were trying to find a way down to the river to take a photo or two of a bridge. Amazingly, in this post-9/11 world, this didn't seem to surprise her any. She introduced us to the other employee, explained that for security reasons he'd have to escort us while we were on the property, and asked us to be quick, since he had work to do.
He hopped in the back of the car, and started giving us directions. As we were following them, we noticed that he, how do I put this, had a quite pungent personal aroma. It wasn't a hygeine issue, though, as we discovered when we asked him, somewhat perplexed, what the place did - they separated and sorted garbage. Tons and tons and tons of garbage.
We made it around to the back side of the huge place, where the employee thoughtfully pointed out a gap in the perimeter fence we could slip thru to get to the construction site for the new bridge that was being built. It wasn't what we'd been looking for, but, let's face it, we weren't likely to get another opportunity like this again, so we broke out the cameras and tripods, and snapped a few frames, of which this is one.
It's quite amusing to me to try and fathom the arbitrary restrictions, and lack of restrictions, on photography today. For all the shooting I do while sneaking around, and for all I operate by the motto "it's easier to get forgiveness than permission", it's sometimes quite amazing just what people will let you do if you ask nicely.
This photograph was taken on 35mm Provia 100, with a Vivitar 28/2.8 wide-angle on a Zenit-EM SLR body, all mounted on a tripod. The light is all from mixed floodlights at the waste facility; the exposure was probably around a minute at f/5.6 or f/8. More exposure wouldn't have been of any benefit; the white temporary building on top of the bridge deck, and the wooden safety railing, are on the edge of overexposure. The inky-black shadow areas are going to be black, under these circumstances, no matter what you do.