RANDY WATKINS: The Last of the Oklahoma Truss Bridges by: Jill Hardy
Randy Watkins, Blackburn Bridge, Digital Photograph, 2013
H.G. Wells once said, “There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection.” The thought of finding beauty in industrialized marvels of engineering isn’t a new idea, but it may be one that takes a mental gear shift for some art lovers. The same principles of appreciation for lines in space, visual harmony, workmanship and other aspects of what we traditionally consider “art” still apply, but there also has to be a recognition of elements we may not automatically associate with it. Photographer Randy Watkins is sharing both his love of the Oklahoma landscape and his deep admiration for the engineered art of the
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old truss bridges that dot our state through a series called the Oklahoma Historical Bridge Project. Watkins began his photography career almost a decade ago, after an interest provoked him to take a photography class at OCU. That initial foray led to almost 24 hours of photography study at the university, and seeing what he considered a dearth of good landscape photography prompted him to make that a focus. “I saw no one was really doing anything like that,” Watkins says. “Oklahoma is a beautiful state, I grew up here and think it’s beautiful.” Watkins aims to highlight a part of our state’s history by capturing images of bridges that may eventually all be replaced by non-steel alternatives. He’s also driven to encourage
recognition of the aesthetic and practical contributions of truss bridges. Truss bridges are comprised of trusses, connected beams that form units to bear the weight of the traffic on a bridge. Before the age of materials like concrete, and the rise of mass manufacturing, the security and longevity of a bridge depended on the sort of innovation and understanding of physics found in the construction of truss bridges. After 1850, steel mostly replaced wood as the material of choice for trusses, but the appearance of the designs needed to properly shift the balance of the bridge’s burdens remained the same. Ranging from simple to complex, the basic styles of truss bridges give them a geometric, eyeholding interest.