The New Oakland Bay Bridge

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we have five major bridges. Although the Golden Gate Bridge is the most famous, the longest bridge is actually the two spans known as the Oakland Bay Bridge. The Oakland Bay Bridge is currently undergoing replacement. Last month, the bridge was closed for the three-day weekend to allow the construction crew time to replace one of the spans.

(Photo by Tom Paiva)

Los Angeles photographer Tom Paiva has been hired to document this multi-year project to retrofit the bridge. During the closure last month, Tom had access to Yerba Buena Island (the island that connects to the two spans in the middle of the San Francisco Bay) to photograph the project.

"The Bay Bridge is an ongoing project that I have been working on for about a year, including a trip to Shanghai, China for the tower fabrication portion.

It was my choice to shoot in 4x5. I felt that a monumental project deserves a monumental format that makes wonderful large prints. Because of the format, exposure times range between 1 minute for twilight and 15-20 minutes for the night shots. No additional lighting is used in these views. Typically, I use transparency film for twilight and color negative for the night shots, which handles the high contrast better." - Tom Paiva

You can see more of Tom's shots of the retrofit here.