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Amy Darbyshire

Sun Rise along the River Wear at The Northern Spire Bridge

Updated: Feb 13, 2021

Today started off as a chilly morning as I drove over to the Northern Spire Bridge, parking at Hylton Riverside Retail Park and then took a short walk down to the riverside. I walked along the stretch of path that lay next to the riverside, seeing where the best place would be to take a photograph of the bridge with the sunrise in the background. This path is a popular destination for dog walkers as I had four dogs come up to me in the short amount of time I was here. There wasn’t much else to photograph here, so I was limited to the compositions I could take, unless I stood at the other side of the bridge, but then most of the photograph would be in shadow from the silhouette the sun would create.


Location of the Northern Spire Bridge

I set my tripod up as I wanted to try using high dynamic range (HDR) to correctly expose my photograph as the sun was very bright, but the foreground was very dark. The addition of my tripod meant all my photographs would have the same framing so there would be no need for any adjustments later on when combining my images together. This is the first time I had used HDR and it turned really well. This can either be done in-camera or on Lightroom; I opted for Lightroom as I wasn’t familiar with the camera function. All I had to do was take three different exposures of my photograph, one that correctly exposes the highlights, one for the midtones and one for the shadows. This meant I did not lose any detail in the highlights or shadows, which I would have done if I took one exposure exposing for the sun.



Along this part of the River Wear is a walking trail that extends from one end of Wessington Way to the other. You will come across many concrete art sculptures that are placed along the pathway, which extends quite far along the river which is highlighted in red on the map. On this trail, you will see beautiful views of the Northern Spire Bridge, the Wearmouth Bridge, the River Wear, abandoned boats and Penshaw Monument in the distance. I would recommend walking this trail at sunrise or sunset as you will get see spectacular views of the sky bursting with colour that shines onto the landscape. I especially encourage you to see Penshaw Monument at sunset from this location, that's something you need to see if you live in Sunderland.


Walking trail along the River Wear

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