The positive/negative shapes and the perspective play tricks on our eyes here and turns the bridge opening into something different. I love these kinds of shots! The highlights of the sun glimmers add even more to the uniqueness of it.
I gave up on this bridge and its reflection, writing off my images as variations on an old theme. My pictures of it were, in essence, little more than cliches. But you go far beyond the cliche by abstracting both bridge and reflection. Instead of showing us a lovely old bridge spanning the Merced, you fuse the bridge with the Merced and create, as so you eloquently term it, a gesture. It is embracive. Sturdy. Permanent. You have taken an ordinary subject and have made it extraordinary by showing us less and saying more.
