Category Archives: London
Seraphina
Yesterday saw the start of The Big Egg Hunt. 209 eggs of various designs have been let loose on the streets of London (the one above is called Seraphina), and as I’m pretty obsessive compulsive about some things, I think it’s my job to find and photograph them all…and it’s not the first time.
In 2010 London was visited by a herd of 258 elephants (a couple more if you could those which weren’t in the official lists), and I spent a few weeks walking for miles upon miles attempting to find and photograph them all; I succeeded – I just wish I knew about HDR back then 
So, for 40 days and 40 nights these eggs are in town, so I will be pacing the streets to get them all. Don’t worry, I won’t post all of them here (but do check out my Flickr for the others).
14 done yesterday…195 to go!
Snow Seat
Remember that day of snow London got this year? Yeah, that was awesome…but seems like such a distant memory now. Here’s a shot of a bench in Greenwich park that day, where people gathered to build snowmen, throw snowballs and slide down hills on plastic sleds. It’s also where we went to shoot some fireworks in the evening – happy days.
Today, well when this goes live on the blog I’ll be sat in a passport office hoping that the scheduled 4 hours for a passport renewal will be reduced by…ooh…3.5 hours ideally. On the plus side, when it’s done I can at least start booking flights; I’m looking at you New York.
Have a good day all
Westminster Cathedral
Another shot taken from my recent walk around the Victoria area, this one is of Westminster Cathedral, not to be confused with Westminster Abbey which is a little grander than this nice little place.
This is taken at 16mm on a full frame and just reminds me how much I love to shoot wide. I really need to save up and buy a nice 14mm this year as that would allow me to show so much more in the shots, including the tripod, and my feet.
I hope everyone had a nice weekend. I had a pleasant walk in the rain on Saturday, but a hangover ruled out any productivity yesterday and I spent it lounging around in self pity.
A new week now though, let’s hope it’s a good one.
Wharf
Friday already, and I thought I would end the week with a shot of Canary Wharf taken a few weeks ago while I was out with Dylan, James and John. As I was taking these exposures a boat drove wandered sailed past and left a nice light streak across the bottom third of the image; I would have liked it to be a little closer to leave the trails slightly lower, but am happy enough with what they add to the shot.
It was a pretty cold night and we had contemplated walking to Greenwich from here, around 2 miles, and back up through the foot tunnel to Canary Wharf. Instead we jumped back on the tube to go back a stop, and a few shots later ended up in the pub. This was followed by a brief trip to London Bridge and another stop in the pub.
I’m officially going to stop calling them photowalks and refer to them by the appropriate title of pubcrawls very soon.
Last week I celebrated one year of this photoblog and posted a few of my favourite shots from the previous year. Thanks to everyone who voted for their personal favourites out of this batch, I’m pleased to announce that your preferred shot was The Day The Music Died
Portlandia
Another shot taken on the Sunday night photowalk, this one shows Portland House towering up at a lovely angle. I’m always amazed by the amount of good light during the blue hour, more so when it’s not visible to the naked eye.
This shot was taken with the 16-35mm which I had borrowed for the shot and which makes me remember just how much I like shooting wide. I’ll need to look into going wide on the 5d Mark II sometime in the near future.
Also, voting is still open for my image of the year, so if you haven’t already done so, head over there and select your fave shot from my shortlist. Thanks.
Frozen
Yesterday I went on a brief photowalk with James, John and Steve around the Victoria area which saw us working our way in towards Trafalgar Square. Passing by St James’s Park we thought that the frozen over water may make for a decent reflection of the Millennium Wheel from a bridge, however it did absolutely nothing but remove the reflection, which was a shame, so I headed down to the water’s edge instead and framed up so that the wheel was visible through this tree and reflected in one of the few watery parts not fully frozen over.
In some ways I think it would have been nicer without the background lights and noise, but finding a clear sky behind a tree in London can be pretty difficult so that wasn’t to be in this instance.
It Looks Like We Made It
Here we are. It’s been a year now and I have uploaded a new blog post every weekday without fail, and a few on the weekends too. Come public holidays, vacations, illness or a hangover the posts have been going up daily and I’ve managed to maintain a level of passion for this wonderful hobby that I feared may not last, and which has no signs of slowing down.
Whether it’s happy birthday or happy anniversary I don’t know, but I’m thankful for everyone who has stuck with me along the way and given me the motivation to continue to post my images and work hard to try and get unique shots. This one’s for you, and for the year ahead.
To celebrate this occasion it was suggested by @foolhandy and @andthesewalls that I post my top ten images and have you lovely readers vote on which of them is your personal favorite. Finding 10 is a tough task, and my recent New Year run down was only made easier because I had to choose one from each month of the year, which is not the case here.
So below you will find 10 images which I either class as my favourite or which mean something to me for one reason or the other, and I would appreciate it if you could take a moment to look through them and then vote for your personal favourite using the polls – I’ve placed the poll before and after the images for convenience, but you can only vote once I’ve removed the bottom poll as it doesn’t appear to work too well. Thanks again for all of your support, and have a great weekend.
1. Inferno (Dante) – One of my earliest and most successful attempts at spinning wire wool.
2. Staircase – My favourite black and white shot.
3. The Day The Music Died – An image which turned out far better than I had conceived when composing the shot.
4. Cell 3 – The one shot I wanted from this urbex location, and I was pleased with it when I got it.
5. London’s Burning – Revisiting this popular spot after learning a lot more about HDR made it clear to me how I had improved.
6. St Paul’s – World AIDS Day – This shot won me 1st place in the competition held by St Paul’s Cathedral.
7. Double Tap – One of the rare shots that turn out exactly as I had conceived when setting it up.
8. Alone – This location in the far north of Scotland was awesome, and had me running barefoot through the sea to get several shots.
9. The Bridge to St Paul’s – One of the first images where I appreciated how much other people enjoy my work.
10. Shard Sunrise – My favourite view from my favourite location during a great sunrise.
Waterloo Sunset
An obvious title for a shot taken from Waterloo Bridge at sunset.
It was bitterly cold on the bridge on this day and I was hoping to have a nicer sunset to view, however the one on offer did allow for a few nice colours in the sky so I at least walked away with something.
I’m sure the focal points within the shot are obvious but just to make sure everyone knows we have the London Eye/Millennium Wheel on the left, Houses of Parliament (where Big Ben is) on the right, and a boat in the middle. The boat isn’t famous, that I know of, but perhaps one day I might be and then the boat could be famous by association…we’ll see.
I’m fighting off a stomach bug at the moment and haven’t really eaten anything of real substance for the last 60 hours or so, plus my head hurts and body aches all over. Hopefully it’ll disappear by the weekend so I can get out and take more photos 
One Step Beyond
I’m enjoying taking shots around the passageways on the London Underground just now; there are many places which provide excellent symmetry and some interesting features. When it comes to the tube tunnels themselves I always thought if you had seen one of them you had seem them all, however I bet they are just as unique when you start looking around them, especially as many tunnels have been built at different times.
This particular shot was done from a platform looking in to a tunnel on one side; I haven’t got the know-how or the inclination to actually wander around the system itself.
Winter Tree
I’ve never shot images in the snow before, I don’t think, so when I went out on Sunday for a quick walk with Dylan and John I found myself with a new challenge to contend with. Though most of the snow in London had melted away, there was still a little bit left in the park areas, and as we were in Greenwich park there was enough left on the ground to be a recognizable part of any image taken, even if it wasn’t the freshest snow in the world.
This image was taken shortly after the sun had gone down as we headed along to watch a firework show. As it was dark and there was little light in the park I was surprised by how much detail I was able to see in the tree, which is no doubt due to the light reflecting off of the snowy surface. I would love to be in an area that has snow over a period of weeks where I can actually attempt to learn about how it affects and image, and how to capture it well; in the meantime I’m happy to just have a go and see what comes from a shot which I know is there on a compositional level.
Bore
Yesterday, after a rather long journey back to London in lovely snowy conditions, the last thing I wanted to do was go back out into the cold and wet and stand around taking photos; however I opted to do so and had a lovely time, even though I was falling asleep throughout.
It was a nice short trip out, starting at the Greenwich foot tunnel which is what you can see in this shot, albeit with a little photoshop work to get give it a darker edge. We then walked around Greenwich a little bit taking in the views and watching a rather lacklustre firework show, finishing off in the pub for a quick bite and pint before going home.
I hope everyone had a nice weekend.
Sunset Wheel
A few weeks ago Dylan and I met up on Waterloo Bridge to try and take in a sunset. It was cold, and the sunset was less than spectacular, plus I don’t think either of us had the groove on for taking shots that day. We left the bridge quite quickly and headed for the National Theatre to pop up to the balconies and take a few elevated shots from there.
After getting to one of the top balconies we were swiftly met by security who asked if we had permission to be there taking photos. I asked if we needed permission, and he responded yes if we’re taking shots of the building. It appears aiming outwards, the way we wanted to, was okay – even with tripods. He gave us details of how to get one level higher and off we went.
As mentioned, the sunset was not a very good one, but I liked the colour behind the wheel at this point and managed to shoot this image which on closer inspection appears to show no people in the pods. I don’t know if it was closed for any particular reason that day, but it’s a pretty rare site.
Although the rest of our mini photowalk was pretty lacklustre I did actually manage to get away with quite a few shots that evening afterall.
I hope everyone has a nice weekend, I’m off out for a photowalk tonight, then out of London tomorrow and then on a photowalk Sunday afternoon/night – as long as the pending snow doesn’t ruin everything of course.
Grave Wolf
I took a nice wander around Brompton Cemetery over the weekend. I haven’t been there for ages, and don’t think I had a camera the last time I went so it was nice to get out there and shoot some of the fascinating graves that they have there.
Since getting the 5d Mark 2 I have been using the 24-70 non stop. This is really due to the fact only this lens and the nifty fifty work on the full frame, my other glass being for the cropped sensor. I enjoy it though, it’s good quality and I love the depth of field you can get, as seen by this shot which has no other focal blur added in post.
Balconies
I seem to constantly be on the lookout, and on the look up, for nice symmetrical buildings when I’m out and about with the camera, and I was fortunate enough to stumble upon this residential block in Chelsea over the weekend.
In these types of locations, especially in posh areas, I expect to see a concierge running out of the entrance and trying to stop me from taking photos, usually with a ‘how would you like it if people came to your home and took pictures?’ in the same way teachers used to ask Do you put your feet up on the chairs at home with muddy shoes on?’ The answers are ‘I wouldn’t care, it’s a nice block of flats built in the 1930s and is often used for people filming TV shows – the more the merrier’ and ‘yes’.
I did want to shoot a few more things in the area unencumbered though, so just took these brackets hand held and nobody bothered to come and stop me.
The Last Stop
Not too much to say about today’s image in this write up; instead, I’ve created a video on how I processed this image from the original exposures through to the end product. Apologies it’s so long…there was me thinking I spend 20 minutes on an image when this one is twice that.
So…my first video attempt at recording a screen, webcam and audio and I have a few notes about it.
1. My PC used to be top notch, but now struggles to handle so many power hungry applications.
2. Uploading the video seemed to lose a little of the quality.
3. Hope you can understand my accent, even though it’s a little out of sync with the webcam.
4. Grab yourself some wine/beer/whisky and drink along with me while I’m at work.
5. Enjoy, and please do leave feedback. What do you do that I don’t, what have you learnt, what questions do you have, etc.
Here’s the original image and the video follows that.
Curtain Call
Here we have the London Marriott Hotel West India Quay, a 5 star hotel in Canary Wharf, and one of the first places we arrived during a impromptu photowalk in that area. It’s pretty tough to get a decent and symmetrical shot of this building I found, but a little bit of perspective cropping seemed to have done the trick for the most part.
I like how the curtains are drawn in many of the windows yet others show the blinds and light from within. There was also slight movement in the clouds over the long exposure.
I’ve had several people ask about different areas of my workflow recently, so tomorrow I’m going to post a video which goes through how I work through an image from the initial selection, through Photomatix and using a few filters from Nik and OnOne Software to get to an end product – hope you can come back then and check it out.
Pan Drops
Pan drops are a mint sweet, however the title fits here due to the angle from which I’m taking a photo from the Pan Peninsular in London and combined with the fact this is the location where I managed to drop the 5d Mark 2. As said before, I luckily dropped it to my feet and not over the edge where it would have had this nice long drop to the ground below.
I hope everyone had a nice weekend
Exit Here
This is the fifth and final image in my London underground mini-series. Thanks to everyone for all of your positive comments on this series throughout the week, I’m glad you like them.
After a long, hot, crammed, sweaty journey in rush hour I’m sure thousands of commuters are happy to see the stairs at the end of the journey which will take them up towards freedom and salvation. I intended this image to simply be evocative of that, however I can imagine that the shot, along with the title, may have parallels with leaving this world for the afterlife.
I guess I could have called it Stairway to Heaven instead?
The image itself was taken on a Sunday afternoon in Covent Garden…ironically one of the stations on the underground where you really don’t wish to take the stairs to the exit as they’re the equivalent of a 14 storey building. Most people just take the lift.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this week long mini-series, and that you have a great weekend ahead.
Alight Here
Day 4 of my week long mini-series on shots from the London underground network.
Interestingly, though the network is indeed called the London Underground the majority of it, nearly 60%, is actually overground and not in the depths of long winding tunnels.
This image was taken while heading out to a photowalk with Dylan, John and Jay, and was from the front of a DLR train which is operated without a driver, hence why a front seat on this train is possible. The windows were shockingly poor to shoot through, quite thick and with lots of grime, but I managed to salvage this exposure somewhat in order to process it and, though dark, clean it up quite a bit. Luck played a strong part with the train in the opposing station pulling out as we came in.
I hope you can join me tomorrow for the last show in this mini-series, it’s certainly one of my favourites of the week.
Stand on the Right
This is day 3 in my week long mini-series of shots from the London Underground.
This one comes with a message that all users of the underground should adhere to, otherwise be branded as both a tourist and as annoying. Sure, the escalators are pretty narrow, but it’s certainly wide enough to accommodate two flows of traffic. If you’re standing, do so on the right. If you’re walking up or down, you should be able to do so freely on the left without having to dodge in and out of people.
Again, not too much work done on this shot. It’s a single bracket that I put through a few PhotoTools filters. I was pretty poor at kneeling and keeping everything straight and centered so I had to do a little perspective crop work to get it looking as symmetrical as possible.
Hope you’re all having a good week and enjoying this mini-series, just two shots left to see this week.
Watching Waterloo
Image #2 in this week’s mini-series of shots taken on the London underground network sees us remaining at Waterloo station.
I’ve seen variations of this shot before, but never had an attempt to do so myself. However, as I stood there with this series in mind I opted to give it a go, and found myself on a relatively empty platform. I had to wait a little while for people to move out of the shot, both direct and in the reflections. I stayed in this spot as I wanted to include the CCTV camera in the image.
It’s not too heavily processed, mainly just running it through a few of the PhotoTools filters. I did flip the final image horizontally so that the reflected wording of the station name was legible in this image, I just preferred that to the mirrored version.
Oh, and if you look closely you’ll see the reflection of me taking the shot in the middle of the image
Burrowed
This week I’m going to do a mini-series of shots taken on the London underground network.
The ‘Tube’ as it’s commonly known here in London, perhaps the Metro or Subway in your own city, is what allows millions of people to navigate their way around London on a daily basis. It’s crowded, it’s hot, and it can be a maze, but late at night it starts to become another beast altogether as commuters and revelers all find their way home and the network shuts down for another night.
I don’t spend much time on the tube myself anymore. I’m fortunate enough to live in a very convenient location which happens to be a 10 minute walk to work and the need for use is generally if I’m having to travel out of London or reach another zone for a photo session or other such venture.
This shot was taken after a brief photowalk with Dfacer on Saturday and was at Waterloo station. Of course on the first glance you may not expect it to be part of a train station, and I really hadn’t noticed how futuristic parts of the network look until I started taking photos of them. I did have to do a little creative post processing to get the end image here, I admit. The ‘doorway’ at the end of the tunnel is a poster of Leonardo DiCaprio, and the tunnel to the right of that is…well…now gone, only to be replaced by a copy of the wall opposite.
I hope you enjoy it though, I had fun processing it. There’s another conceptual one coming up at the end of the week, with a few more straightforward shots between now and then. I’ll see you tomorrow for #2 in the series.
Night at the Museum
Another shot from the British Museum, but in quite a contrast to the fresh, white, minimalist image posted yesterday.
I was waiting around the entrance when the lovely staircase leading up to the viewing gallery suddenly had no people on it, and so I quickly took that opportunity to grab a few handheld brackets.
It is pretty heavily processed to get a dark, night time feel to it.
I hope everyone has a great weekend.
Pose
My lesson for today – don’t be scared to experiment and make mistakes.
This week a friend bought her first camera, a Canon EOS 550d. I had a little something to say in the matter, as I was given a budget and asked to assist, and this wonderful bit of kit is what we ended up choosing. A new dSLR can be daunting for someone who has never used one…I should know as a few years ago I was in the same boat. We started with the basics of Shutter Speed, Aperture and ISO which is where I think most people should start.
By playing with these settings and seeing the results that they have in different light conditions and in working with each other you gain a greater understanding of what they do, and how one effects the other. This is what was happening yesterday when I took this photo, but it was my inexperienced friend who first took this shot and inspired me to repeat it.
We went to the British Museum to have a quick photo session and found ourselves, as is often the case when I visit here, at the viewing gallery which overlooks the great court. After being down in the darkened stairways and compensating for the lack of light using a slower shutter speed and a higher ISO, my friend failed to adjust for the sudden brightness that was available as part of the large open space and glass ceiling that was now in front of us. As such, the images taken from there were pretty over exposed.
However, looking down at the public from this height, the image taken, even though technically incorrect, looked awesome. A solitary figure in the middle of a vast amount of whiteness was quite compelling.
So I stole the idea and took my own shot with the same outcome in mind…though I admit my shot wasn’t as pure and did require editing in Photoshop afterwards. The lady in the shot was busy preparing herself for a photo that her friend was about to take of her.
This image is the result of experimentation. Sure, it may not have been me who was experimenting at this stage, but it reminded me how much can be learnt by playing around and making mistakes, and also how sometimes that one shot you love is created by this.
Don’t be afraid to go wrong.
Skyline
The London skyline has been changing over the past years; I say for the better.
This view is from one relatively recent addition to the skyline, and is looking at several more with the Heron Tower, Gherkin and the currently under construction Shard all in view.
I was walking past a place the other night and saw a mock up of future London and what the skyline may look like, the Gherkin was tiny in comparison to the large buildings that surrounded it. I was in a rush that day, but if I get to go past there again I’ll grab a shot of it and post it for a comparison.
I thought a blue tone on this shot made it look nice and futuristic.
