Last week, while driving down Mounts Bay Road, I noticed that as the sun rose above the hills, it provided some interesting silhouettes of the traffic on the Narrows Bridge that crosses the Swan River between Perth and South Perth.
With the Mandurah train line also crossing the Narrows Bridge, traffic across the bridge includes cars, trucks, trains and cyclists.

I immediately started thinking about returning to take some photos...so on Friday morning, Adrian and myself made our way to Perth, with the aim being some silhouette photos of traffic on the Narrows Bridge as the sun rose. We positioned ourselves on the north shore of the Swan, between the Narrows and the old Swan Brewery, where we would be almost orthogonal to the Narrows bridge.

Narrows Bridge before dawn

(3 image stitch)

Narrows Bridge, Perth, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 24-70mm f/2.8L @24mm, f/2.8, ISO400

With the sun still below the horizon, some great orange colours began appearing in the sky, resulting in some great silhouettes of traffic on the Narrows bridge.

With a train crossing the bridge in each direction every 5 minutes, we had quite a few opportunities to capture silhouettes of the train.

The image below shows some easily-recognisable shapes, with a Transperth bus, a van, and a train, all heading north (ie, right-to-left) into the city.

piggy in the middle

a train appears to be following a bus and a van on the Narrows

Narrows Bridge, Perth, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 24-70mm f/2.8L @70mm, 1/1000 sec, f/4.5, ISO320

I tried some longer exposures, but they didn't quite provide the result I was hoping for.

longer exposure of traffic on Narrows Bridge

Narrows Bridge, Perth, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 24-70mm f/2.8L @66mm, 1/15 sec, f/22, ISO100

As the sun began peeking over the hills in the distance, right behind the bridge, it lit up the water under the bridge, and made the silhouettes even more distinct.

morning traffic on the Narrows

Narrows Bridge, Perth, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 24-70mm f/2.8L @70mm, 1/640 sec, f/5.6, ISO100

In the photo below, a concrete truck provides a very distinct silhouette as it heads north across the Narrows.

concrete truck silhouette

Narrows Bridge, Perth, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 24-70mm f/2.8L @70mm, 1/800 sec, f/5.6, ISO100

At this time in the morning, the trains on the Mandurah line that are leaving the city and heading south are mostly empty, as shown below.

southbound train silhouette

Narrows Bridge, Perth, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 24-70mm f/2.8L @58mm, 1/640 sec, f/5.6, ISO100

However, the trains heading north into the city have a lot more passengers on-board as people make their way into the city for work.

northbound train silhouette

Narrows Bridge, Perth, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 24-70mm f/2.8L @67mm, 1/500 sec, f/7.1, ISO100

As the sun rose higher in the sky, I managed a last silhouette of a south-bound train using a longer lens (below). With the sun above the top of the trains, it was too bright for silhouettes, so we packed up and left shortly after this shot.

southbound train

Narrows Bridge, Perth, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 70-200mm f/4L @126mm, 1/1600 sec, f/7.1, ISO100