To counter this I recently went on a walk with Jason Row, a friend and colleague for many years, around the Tower Bridge area of London. This is a glorious place containing views of the Thames River, the Tower of London, City Hall, The Shard, HMS Belfast, and the office tower blocks in the City of London. It was early winter so we had to wrap up warm, especially as we chose to stand in the middle of Tower Bridge to take the majority of our photos where the cold wind was blowing freely along the river.
We set up with our tripods a short while before the sun went below the horizon with our cameras set to long exposures of 30 seconds and upwards and chatted away whilst we took our photos. Why such long exposures you may ask? With the camera held still by the tripod, the static objects are rendered beautifully sharp whilst moving objects, the river and the clouds for example, obtain a gorgeously smooth ethereal look.
After they were captured the images required very little tweaking on the computer. From memory, the contrast was increased a fraction, the exposure lifted a bit, and a little extra saturation added.
A lot of a freelance photographer's time is spent editing images on a computer at home, this was a fun exercise which allowed me to explore the amazing city I live in, create some images I'm proud of and to catch up with an old friend.
We then took the short walk to the Tower of London, where the art installation by Paul Cummins in remembrance of the British and Colonial servicemen who died in the First World War 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' was nearing completion. It was an incredible sight and experience. There was a large crowd and finding space to take a long exposure photograph was tricky!
That's all for today. More to follow...