The next featured covered bridge of Madison County (Iowa) is the Holliwell covered bridge. It was built in 1880 by Benton Jones and located over the Middle River, southeast of Winterset. The Holliwell is the longest bridge, measuring 122 feet. If you saw the movie “The Bridges of Madison County”, you probably remember seeing the Holliwell covered bridge. This bridge was renovated in 1995, for $225,000.
The Holliwell covered bridge, although not a lot of fall color around it yet, was high on my list of covered bridges I photographed on this trip. I really liked being able to shoot from the river-level, although the amount of water was quite small. I actually tried to get some images with the gently running water as a silky look. I added both a 2-stop and a 3-stop (totaling 5 exposure stops) of neutral density filters, but still was unable to get the look I was trying for. I could have added one more filter, a 2-stop polarizing filter, and may have gotten closer to what I was looking for. But the polarizer was back in the car and I decided it was not worth going back for. Besides, the water was so slowly running that it likely would not have worked very well … and if it had, I’m sure I would have been shooting so slowly that the wind would have really softened all the foliage.
Next stop … the Cedar covered bridge.
Photo Equipment Used:
- Canon 1D Mark 3 body
- Canon 28mm-135mm lens
- Bogen 3221 Tripod, with Kirk Ent. HD Ballhead
- ISO 200 (both images)
- Aperture f/22 (both images)
- Shutter Speed (1/125 sec. for first image; 1.3 seconds for the second image, using the neutral density filters)