London - A Walk Along The North Bank

Last Saturday, I headed into London for the day.  The weather forecast, windy with cloud breaking up throughout the afternoon, was promising for some good long exposure shots of the big buildings.  Sadly, thanks to a broken down train, my journey in took nearly 2 hours longer than it should have.  With a good portion of the day and most of the cloud gone, I abandoned plans to head into the City.  Instead I took a stroll along the north bank of the Thames from London Bridge to Waterloo.

It was low tide, and I managed to find a couple of spots on the shoreline for some 10-stop photos with the last of the decent cloud.  The backwashes of the many passing boats provided a challenge to getting really close to the water's edge.  After that, it was on to low-light shots. I couldn't resist including the 'Paul's Walk' sign in the shot of Sea Containers House and the Oxo Building.

 

 

Photo24: Through The Night

Some more images from Photo24.  Regular readers will know that night photography is a particular passion of mine.  So the idea of shooting through the shortest night of the year was one of my main reasons for taking part in the event.  The set meeting point for sunset was near Westminster Bridge at 8pm. 

On the bridge, an obvious first thing to try was blurred buses and taxis in the failing light.  Sadly, the weather was not kind.  It had rained quite hard earlier in the afternoon, and no sooner had we set up tripods and cameras than the showers returned, forcing a cover-up.  There followed an hour long battle with the on/off rain.  Eventually it cleared up enough for a hint of a sunset, and the wet roads did add a little something to some of the images.

It wasn't long before we had to head off for the next meet-up, 11.00pm at Liverpool Street Station for a late night walk through the City.  The initial rendezvous was a little confused (not helped by the fact that there was a completely separate 12 hour photo event also taking place), but eventually a group of us started a slow stroll though the heart of the City, ending at St Paul's.  I had bought the new version Canon 'nifty fifty' (the f1.8 STM) just prior to this trip, with the express purpose of having a lens I could use hand-held in low-light situations.  I didn't use it much, but it did help get a few shots.

The planned meet-up for dawn was back on Westminster Bridge.  However, I didn't see the point in doing that location twice, so I persuaded Vic that instead we should head for the 'More London' area near Tower Bridge.  Having failed to find an all night cafe that we were 'assured' was not too far from St Paul's (thanks Mr Cheung), we spent a couple of hours in a McDonalds, before heading over London Bridge and down past HMS Belfast to City Hall.  There, we met about 20 or so 'togs from the 12-hour event. 

This was clearly too many for the More London security, who felt the need to hassle us at 4am regarding the copyright status of their buildings.  God bless whoever it was that persuaded them we were merely shooting the sky (a singly dull flat featureless sky) on the shortest night.  At one point, there were so many cameras and tripods lined up facing Tower Bridge that the South Bank took on the appearance of an al fresco branch of Calumet.  Sadly, dawn didn't happen.  The flat grey sky just got lighter.  It was time to move on to another location.

South Bank Night Shots

A final set from last weekend. I couldn't leave the South Bank on such a beautiful clear evening without taking a few night shots.

Tower Bridge

Whilst in town working on my new project, I was also able to spend a bit of time on one of my old ones. So here are a few more shots of Tower bridge by night to add to the collection.

Lambeth Bridge

I have an ongoing project to photograph the Thames bridges, from Kew to Tower bridge, by night.

It is a rather slow going project because:
- I don't get into London that often.
- Not every night I am there is right for photography
- I can usually only do one bridge a night
- It can take several visits to get the shot I want.

Since, I was in Town last Saturday, I naturally wanted to bag another bridge. I had intended to photograph Westminster Bridge, and had even pre-planned several shots. Unfortunately, when I got there, I found that end of the Parliament next to Westminster Bridge was covered in scaffolding and plastic. This ruined the shots I had planned. It was time to find another bridge. Fast.

So I moved onto Lambeth Bridge. Frankly, it's not the most exciting bridge on the Thames. And with the sun nearly down I didn't have much time to find an interesting angle. Still I managed a couple of images for the collection.