With much of the rowing world still in some form of quarantine last spring, row2k spent a ton of time on the Strawberry Mansion Bridge in Philadelphia photographing racing from a distance. The Philadelphia crews were mostly able to launch and return to their own boathouses with zero contact, so set up racing every weekend with the occasional visiting crew.

Racing was very spread out - e.g., the women would race from 9-10:30, clear out of the boathouses, and the men would arrive at 11 and race from 12-1:30, and then often a third flight would start after another break. The Philadelphia college coaches were extremely helpful keeping row2k apprised of the planned schedules, although on the day it was often a matter of just photographing whatever came down the course, as plans were changing almost to the minute.

As a result, we had many spare hours on the bridge waiting for races, which resulted in this long exposure photo taken with an infrared filter, then cooked a bit in PS.

Photo by Ed Hewitt.