Incheon Bridge at Night

Since I was a little kid, I’ve loved bridges.

I suppose growing up in Long Island has much to do with this. Long Island, after all, is the kingdom Robert Moses built, and New York City, of course, has the greatest collection of bridges of any city in the world.

Korea, too, has its share of beautiful bridges, but perhaps none as spectacular of the Incheon Bridge, the 12.5km giant that spans the approach to Incheon Harbor and links Incheon International Airport with the growing metropolis of Songdo International Business District (IBD) in the process. With its graceful curves and pylons as tall as Yeouido’s 63 Building, the bridge is both a marvel of Korean engineering and one of Korea’s most beautiful pieces of modern architecture. When Songo IBD is finally complete, the bridge will be a defining landmark of a truly spectacular urban landscape.

Korea’s legions of amateur photographers love Incheon Bridge for its terrific night views, and in particular its alluring “S-line.” At sunset and twilight, the views from the hill atop Incheon’s Dongchun Tunnel can be jawdropping—click here to see what I mean. I visited last summer for a travel piece on Songdo IBD in SEOUL magazine, but due to energy concerns, they weren’t lighting it up at the time.

On my latest visit—the Lunar New Year—the bridge was once again lit up, which made me and the two other photographers on site very happy. The temperatures were freezing, but the air was crystal clear, with good down-field viability. I’m told you really want something that zooms out to 300mm; all I’ve got is my trusty Nikon 18-200mm VR, but it seemed to do me just fine.

Yeonsu Dullegil

Thanks to the popularity of Jeju-do’s Ollegil roads, other cities and towns around Korea—including Seoul—have been keen to open their own scenic walking trails. If you’re into futuristic urban design, Songdo IBD has a highly recommended walking trail (which I wrote about here), and the Yeonsu district of Incheon has recently created a “Dullegil” path of its own.

The “photo point” for Incheon Bridge is a rocky outcrop near the summit of Mt. Bongnaesan, reached via an approach right next to Dongchun Tunnel on the road to Songdo IBD from Incheon Subway’s Dongchun Station. The spot is just below an old bunker once belonging to an ROKAF anti-air missile base that in December of 1998 accidentally launched a Nike Hercules surface-to-air missile; the missile exploded above some reclaimed land off Songdo, showering residential areas with debris.

Whoops.

Parked cars were destroyed, windows broken and other damage sustained, but fortunately, nobody was hurt. The base has since been relocated to Yeongjongdo, where Incheon International Airport is located.

Songdo IBD is “leading the charge to become a blueprint for the city of the future,” according to a recent write-up in Metro. Metro even suggested it could also help “upgrade older cities like London,” which is perhaps apt, since as I’ve noted before, on a weekend Songdo looks a lot like “28 Days Later” thanks to its lack of inhabitants. That aside, I saw more lights on this time around than usual (all the more impressive as it’s the Lunar New Year), and even one of my friends is moving in, so perhaps the place is finally filling up. I’ve sung Songdo’s praises before, and for the boys and girls at Nightview, the place is a veritable playground.

Incheon Bridge

Finally, the main event.

I’ve posted the jpg’s—what little processing that was done was done in Picasa reprocessed with GIMP, mostly to straighten them out. I have the RAW files, too, but I’m happy with the jpg’s for now and, frankly, not in the mood to process the RAW files in Bibble and GIMP. I’ll do that sometime later, I guess.

One of the nice things about shooting landscapes at night—or in the early morning—is you often get a chance to meet like-minded folk. While I was at Namhansanseong the night before, some guys shooting up there likened it to fishing—you spend most of your time waiting and throwing the bull with whoever else shows up.

If you’re lucky, somebody has brought a thermos with coffee.

I’ve been out once with KODOS, who also does some excellent work for our magazine. I met Dsen on another shoot in Myeong-dong. This time around, I met one of the members of this outstanding photography site. For beginners like me, it’s a wonderful chance to watch guys who know what they are doing and perhaps learn a thing or two.

Happy Lunar New Year, everybody!

Directions & Map

I usually take a taxi from Dongchun Station, Incheon Subway Line to Dongchun Tunnel. From there, it’s a short hike to the photo spot.

큰 지도에서 Dongchun Tunnel 보기