Category Archives: London
Lion Tazza
Regent’s Park has many wonderful fountains and statues, and this is a segment of just one of them.
I have no idea what mythical beast this actually is, with the head of a lion and wings but with antlers? Either way, there are four of them holding up this fountain and as I took a walk around the park earlier this year doing a little hand held work this was the result.
Friday at last – I hope everyone has a great weekend ahead of them.
Suspended Animation
This is Chelsea Bridge, the first self-anchored suspension bridge in Britain. It crosses the river Thames with Battersea at the south and Chelsea at the North…if you look closely through these light trails you can see Battersea Power Station in the background.
This shot was taken the same night as my previous few shots on a nice little walk around London, something I still need to make the time to do more of this year.
BPS by Moonlight
Swing the camera left by 120 degrees or so from where I took yesterday’s shot and you get this view of Battersea Power Station.
What this image does is remind me how much I love shooting with wide angle glass, and when attempting to get both the moon in the sky and the reflection in the water, my 24mm (as was used here) does not cut it at times. If anyone wants to give me a loan of their 14mm I would be very happy to take care of it for you; it’s not as if I have a history of dropping expensive items or anything.
Not much to say about this shot otherwise; it’s an iconic building that has been shot many times – mostly from this location. I don’t get tired of looking at it, and hate it when I see the development plans saying they’re going to get rid of the chimney stacks…though I think the latest plans for this location keep those in place.
Underpass
On a photowalk the other night we ended up across the river from Battersea Power Station, a place shot many a time. While Jay and John were busy shooting the popular view of this iconic building I turned my attention to the immediate location, which was this underpass with train lines going overhead.
I spent a little time playing around, and using my torch for a few fun lights painting shots, but it’s my first shot just of the underpass with nothing else in the view which I liked the most.
Hope everyone had a nice weekend – the weather here was lovely, so I obviously spent most of my time indoors.
London View
This seat has one of the best views in London. Millennium Wheel on one side, as you can see, and the Shard to the other – plus plenty of views in between. If you’ve been a regular follower of my work over the past year you would have seen what I mean.
My Head in the Clouds image was taken from this spot, just on a different night, and so this image will give you a better idea of how it was achieved.
Have a good weekend everyone.
Reaching
It feels like a lifetime since we went to Canary Wharf to take some night shots, although all too recent that I dropped my shiny new camera – so when looking at this image, which was taken that night, I can’t decide if it feels like it was taken last year or last week.
I quite liked this building on the left, which is the hotel in my Curtain Call shot from the same night.
There are a few figures in the image; some of these are just people in the area, however there are also two photographers. Dylan is closest to the camera standing with tripod, and John is crouched in the distance. Over to my right was Jay taking this shot.
A Tale of Two Cities
I was up and out of the house reasonably early for a Saturday morning last week, around 7am, and my first destination was the Southbank. It’s normally teaming with tourists, but I had eggs to find so wanted to do so while it was quiet and early morning seemed to be the best choice (I returned later in the day to get a few indoor eggs once locations had opened and it was indeed busy busy busy).
Enjoying the solitude I took a walk past the London Eye/Millennium Wheel, slowly following this guy and his dog as they walked along. It’s likely due to the dog, but for some reason I thought they looked a little French to me. If it wasn’t for the landmarks I could easily have believed I was in Paris walking down the Seine.
It wasn’t too long before they presented me with this photo opportunity; the guy leaning to get all of the wheel in his shot of the Thames, and the dog adopting this pose so that the leash didn’t pull too tightly.
I loved how it turned out.
Portland House
This is a view of Portland House in the Victoria area, it’s the front view of the building you see in my Portlandia image and was taken not so long before it on the same trip.
I’m so far behind with processing blog images as I’ve spent the last week using any free time to find and photograph eggs around London, and the majority of my time this weekend was spent processing them. I’ve managed to process around 155 eggs or so to date, so only another circa 50 to go.
Hope everyone had a nice weekend though, and also have a great week ahead.
Reflected City
This was a handheld bracket shot from the HMS Liverpool out in Canary Wharf earlier this year. It wasn’t the nicest weather but I noticed the buildings were reflecting pretty well in the water and decided to snap away. On another trip, when I’m not aboard a battleship, I would like to redo one from here using a tripod to smooth out the water somewhat and see if I can get a cleaner reflection.
As with yesterday I made heavy use of the Urban Sickness filter, a part of Phototools by OnOne Software. Seeing as how that’s two in a row I’m tempted to do a week of shots that use this filter…not sure that’ll happen though as I’m a little too busy to process lots of new images at the moment and am relying on the ones in my completed shoebox.
Walk This Way
On my walk around the Battersea area the other week I had just made my way to Battersea bridge when this guy walked past in a hurry. I loved his hat, the coat collar pulled up over his neck and the trousers that were a little too short so I quickly pulled up the camera and took a few snaps. He was going at quite a pace so I didn’t get much time at all to frame and shoot.
When it came to processing I relied mostly on the Urban Sickness filter in Phototools which I thought would fit pretty well with the shot.
Skewed
This week we start by going underground again; this time a popular photo spot of an especially quiet passageway at London Bridge.
I hope everyone had a nice weekend. I spent it walking around London collecting shots of the eggs on display. I did rather well, and now have 199 done with 10 left to get. My feet are extremely sore now though 
I’m adding them to a set on flickr should you wish to view any of them: The Big Egg Hunt
I was also fortunate enough to hold the prize for this hunt, a £100,000 Fabergé egg. It’s a nice little piece that would look great on my desk, though I feel that’s the closest I was able to get to it realistically though.
Solemn Memories
This is another shot from the day I took a quick walk around Brompton Cemetery. As I’ve mentioned before, there is such a lot to see around there that a repeat journey and a little bit of a longer visit is certainly going to be on the cards; I think it would also be an ideal place to do a few fun scenes, possibly with my hoodie character – it has a lot of potential.
Egg Hunt update, I managed to grab just over 30 before work this morning, so I’ve hit a total of 90 eggs found, which isn’t bad for 3 days where I’ve been at work. Nearly half way there (and knackered).
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.
Which is your favourite photo?
- 3. The Day The Music Died (36%, 12 Votes)
- 10. Shard Sunrise (15%, 5 Votes)
- 4. Cell 3 (12%, 4 Votes)
- 8. Alone (12%, 4 Votes)
- 6. St Paul’s – World AIDS Day (12%, 4 Votes)
- 5. London's Burning (6%, 2 Votes)
- 2. Staircase (3%, 1 Votes)
- 9. The Bridge to St Paul’s (3%, 1 Votes)
- 1. Inferno (Dante) (0%, 0 Votes)
- 7. Double Tap (1%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 33
Loading ... 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.
