Overpass Gathering

Chicano Park, situated beneath the freeway overpasses leading to the Coronado Bay Bridge in the Barrio Logan neighborhood of San Diego, holds a rich history. After occupation and protests by the residents of the neighborhood, the site was reclaimed from the city. Today, the park is adorned with numerous murals and artworks that proudly showcase the unique cultural heritage of its inhabitants.

On car show days, the overpass transforms into a vibrant gathering place for automotive enthusiasts, where a multitude of exquisite vehicles converge beneath its structure. This spectacle visually embodies the duality of a hidden space that simultaneously serves as a sanctuary. This duality is particularly poignant given the contested nature of this land.

In the 1970s, simply driving a lowered car, like those displayed at the car show, was sufficient grounds for law enforcement to detain the occupants, suspecting them of committing an unknown crime.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

This image is a composite HDR vertorama composed of four sets of images, each containing ten high dynamic range exposures for a total of forty images. During the initial photography session, I experimented with both horizontal and vertical compositions. However, the horizontal shot failed to capture the overpass entirely, even with a wide-angle lens. Conversely, the vertical shot provided a glimpse of the overpass, but excessively cropped off the cars which necessitated the creation of a vertorama.

While capturing forty 61-megapixel shots did consume a significant amount of hard drive space, the I feel the resulting vertorama is worthwhile in this instance.