Tempe Town Lake

Author's Comments

The first time I came to Tempe Town Lake I thought it was a strange thing, this engineered stretch of water in the middle of the desert, the Salt River bed put to use as a mirror. I have come around. Engineered or not, the lake does something at blue hour that I have not found elsewhere in the valley. The skyline goes from glare to glow in the span of fifteen minutes, and the water, which by day looks merely flat, becomes the more interesting half of the photograph. I shoot most often from the north shore pedestrian bridge in late November or early February, when the air is clear and the heat has finally relented. The Mill Avenue Bridge sits to the west and catches the last warm light on its undersides while the sky behind it cools to indigo. A Mountain rises just past it. If you time it right, the city lights come on while there is still color in the sky, and that ten minute window is what you came for. A long exposure smooths the lake to glass. Bring a tripod. The pedestrian bridges hold steady enough for a two or three second exposure, and that is usually all you need to clean up the surface. The light rail crosses periodically, and a train streaking through your frame at the right moment is a small gift. This is an urban photograph more than a natural one, and I have stopped pretending otherwise. Come for the symmetry. Come for the way a desert city looks at dusk when it is briefly reflected back at itself.

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