 “At RIT she printed her Peruvian negatives as her first school project.Her technique was not yet polished, but the deep shadows, the eloquent light, and sense of time standing unnaturally still were present in every print.Bridges already had her style ... Cornell Capa, the dean of American photography, saw her work, admired it, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York gave her an exhibition.”

In 1982, after receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship, Bridges flew in a small single-engine Cessna from New York to the Yucatán, where she photographed ancient Mayan sites, some still partially overgrown by the dense jungle.