London October 24
Probably my favourite photo of the trip. The runner stopping for a photo made it. It was 15mm 20s F16 to get the light stars. 125 ISO. Unfortunately I lost a bit of the image because of distortion so I had to crop it.
Again the point of these articles is more for my benefit than yours! There is going to be some rambling and then an explanation of the shots in order for me to be able to critically look at my photographs, I might even find an actionable point somewhere.
A work event for Alyson led us to our second trip to the capital of the year. The previous trip was the first opportunity to test out the new hip and I think I walked about 60 miles in those few days. But was faced with some of the worst photography luck you could imagine - inexplicable closures to train strikes ruining long exposure photos etc. The general policy is I get up at sparrow fart and make my way to the desired location in plenty of time for blue hour to allow for something absurd to go wrong - normally navigation issues on the tube! I then proceed to spam my camera’s shutter for an hour or so, accept the results have let this beautiful city down then go and meet Alyson for breakfast. We then fill the day with generally camera free adventure and I might do a bit of shooting at sunset but won’t let it get in the way of us stuffing our faces - the principle reason for any trip to London.
Day one Millennium Bridge
The rooftop bar. I Don't particularly like this one, it was a bit of a restricted option. Quite a cool viewpoint though. 15mm 1/60 ISO400
We were staying almost next to St Paul’s Cathedral the night before and went for a drink with Alyson’s boss and husband in the roof top bar. Funnily enough I had seen this spot in an Optical Wander video a few months earlier.
Not much in the sky, the mist makes Tower Bridge look a bit out of focus. I like the symmetry. 210mm f8 for sharpness (meh) 6/1s 125 ISO
Alyson was quite restricted for breakfast time so I kept close for the morning shots. Pretty uninspiring light just led me to the Millennium Bridge. I had a rare day on my own which I used to look at camera shops as the weather was too miserable to get soaked. I managed to get to my first Arsenal home game for 13 years - yes, the Emirates is still uninspiring.
Day two Primrose Hill
Towards the city. 81mm F16 20s 125 ISO I wanted the lights in the foreground which meant I had to slap the horizon right in the middle of the frame.
I have seen a lot of photos from up there and given we were staying at Old Street I thought it was worth a punt. I got up at 5:45 feeling knackered after the football, looked out of our room window (the elegant luxury of a Premier Inn), saw how crap the weather looked and got back into bed. Honestly the thing that got me up again and into the shower was more because I wanted to burn some calories to allow for forthcoming gluttony. In every situation like this, I am glad I did get up.
This light lasted literally about 15 seconds. 210mm f16 1/8s ISO125.
The light was uninspiring but suddenly changed as the heavy showers cleared and produced some nice pockets of light. One of the resident nutters informed me of the pitfalls of listening to mainstream media weather forecasts before she disappeared with the rain. Primrose Hill is really nice if a bit one dimensional.
A Dishoom bacon naan and pulled pork roll wrap proceeded a trip to the F1 exhibition - a few OK shots but almost impossible to get nice images there with possibly the highest concentration of ignorant pricks in the western world.
Some helmets
Max Verstappen's World Championship winning RB16
I then made a horrendous decision. Westminster Bridge at sunset. It was heaving. Photo deleted!
Day Three and Four - London Bridge
I have always wanted to get some shorts of this stairway and the way that and the bridge wrap around The Shard. I then walked down towards Tower Bridge but didn’t want to get too close after getting hassled by security guards last time demanding I show my permit! I got a couple of quick uninspiring long exposures. We decided to be tourists and go to Battersea Power Station (Borough Kitchen is a brilliant shop and worth the visit alone) to jump on an Uber Boat to Canary Wharf- something we always wanted to do. I discovered that the triangular statue (another place I have wanted to photograph from was literally 25 yards from where I was standing a few hours earlier so the next morning I headed back via St Katherine’s Dock to grab a better photo of the statue and Tower Bridge.
It wasn’t a vintage trip to London with the camera but it was still great fun. It possibly encouraged me to say with Fuji - so that should save a few quid!
