Shutter Mike Photography

Built in 1956 for the H. C. Price Company, the Price Tower is one of only two Frank Lloyd Wright designed high rise buildings still in existance.  At 19 stories the building was designed as a multiple use building with offices, retail and apartments.  Today it is still a multifunction high rise being home to the Price Tower Arts Center, a museum of art, architecture, and design; Inn at Price Tower; Copper Restaurant and Bar, and the Wright Place museum store.

Bartlesville, OK may not be where you would expect to find a building like the Price Tower, much less a masterpiece by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.  But what seems like a small Midwestern railroad town is really home to major corporations such as Phillips 66.  And in Bartlesville, the Price Tower does not compete with a crowded skyline.  It is the skyline.

I did a photo collection of this pedestrian bridge over the dam at Tempe Town Lake during the day a while ago.  But at night the bridge is something entirely different.  The lighting is really amazing and makes for some great photographs.

I have to add the Tempe Town Lake area (the bridges, beach, Tempe Center for the Arts and parks) as one of my top photography spots in the Phoenix area.  There is so much in such a small area to photograph.  There is architecture in the Hayden Ferry buildings and the Tempe Center for the Arts, incredible night time photography opportunities with the lighting on the buildings and Mill Avenue Bridges, and many great daytime photo worthy subjects as well.  Plus, if you are a portrait photography there are a lot of great settings to photography your subjects.  So all around, Tempe Town Lake is at the top of my great places to photograph in Phoenix.

The photographs in this collection are of the Mill Avenue Bridges taken at sunset and twilight.  Bring a tripod and the North shore of the lake is the best vantage point.

The Tempe Town Lake was created by damming two ends of a dry river bed and filling it with water.  The point was to create a public space near Tempe’s downtown district.  There are often complaints, some valid, of wasting water on something like this in the Arizona desert.  But based on the number of people who use the lake and the surrounding parks the complaints aren’t too loud.  That is until the rubber dam that holds the water in the lake burst after baking in the Arizona sun for several years.  Millions of gallons of water rushed down the dry Salt River emptying the lake.  The dam was fixed, the water filled back up and the fish restocked.  And then a bridge was built over the dam to shade it from the brutal sun.  Whatever your position is on building a lake like this in the middle of the desert, the bridge is a very cool design (and functional) element crossing over the west end of the lake.

The 4th and final part of the Crossings series has the details, detail shots of the bridges.  In case you missed them be sure to check out part one, part two and part three of the series.

This is part two of my Crossings series which features pedestrian bridges that cross the 51 Freeway in Phoenix, AZ.  Check out part one of the crossings series in case you missed it yesterday.