Bay Bridge Lights Plus

Picking up from where we left yesterday's entry, just as I had finished shrinking the tripod to carrying-size, I looked up and saw the sight in the photo below.

For a moment, I became an observer, not a recorder. Just a moment.

Then I quickly returned the tripod to its full length and began recording.

I took several photos in a very short time, fearing that this experience would not last long.

When asked what his reaction was when he saw the lights come on for the first time, Leo Villareal, the artist who created and programmed the designs to flicker across the bridge, said: "It was overwhelming. I mean, it was really very, very exciting, because I worked very hard to integrate this piece into its environment. But it's not specific, and it's meant to be open-ended, highly subjective, so you can just relax, be with the piece, and take from it what you will. You will never see the exact same progression of sequences twice."

Somehow, I was able to shift from a state of being transfixed to one of taking as many photos as possible with some slight variation in the scene's composition.

I felt very fortunate to have these two boats (below) appear at the same time. Given the stationary nature of the scene, the speed of these boats seemed greatly exaggerated.

Villareal added, "Installing the piece was also incredibly challenging. We had workers 525 feet up over the water at night from 11:00 p.m. until 5:00 a.m. for months on end.

"It's cold. You know, you have thousands of cars rushing at you with a couple of cones protecting you, you know, dangling you know over the water at night.

When the moon cleared mountainous Yerba Buena Island and revealed that it was a full moon, that completed the scene. What a perfect combination of the beauty of Nature and one man's creativity.

"The lights, which are on every night from dusk until 2:00 a.m., can be seen only on the side facing north towards Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. Drivers on the bridge cannot see or be distracted by the lights, one of many safety precautions dictated by a host of government agencies" (pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june13/baybridge_03-14.html).

It was a clear, cool evening--perfect for Bay Bridge viewing. Although the light display had been running for eight months, there was still a good-sized crowd strolling past me on Public Pier 1 on the Embarcadero.

As I focused on the lights, I could not begin to comprehend the challenge that programming 25,000 LED lights on 300 cables to produce one design presented--let alone producing designs in a sequence that does not repeat.

Ben Davis, a public relations official for the Illuminate the Arts project, "...thinks of The Bay Lights as a giant metaphorical campfire for the city, and he hopes it will draw San Franciscans out of their doors and into the fog—which will add its warping, refracting effects to the lighting program—to watch the bridge together.

'This piece is not like the Mona Lisa; you don't just get a postcard and say, "I saw it,"' said Davis. 'It is like a crackling fire, or a meteor shower, that you sit there and you just look at, and it's the stories you tell, the songs you sing, and it's the people that you meet, because you're there for hours" (architizer.com/blog/leo-villareal-bay-lights/

the largest light sculpture in the world, spanning 1.8 miles. It will also be the longest. That's because the artist behind the installation, Leo Villareal, built custom software that will choreograph the LEDs according to an unrepeating sequence

What a marvelous show! And what a striking memory to take with us as we leave San Francisco.