The month started with a return visit to London Docklands, though this time with greyer weather. It being a flying visit, I was pressed to find subjects and angles in the short timespan, and practiced my ability to work under pressure.
My main focus was on a Trinity House lightboat, which was stunningly red against the dreary surroundings, and worked well with the setpiece of the old Spillers warehouse rising behind it. The photo below on the left is my first picture of it, taken more to capture the boat at all than with thought to framing. The photo below on the right has had more consideration put into it: the tower of the lightboat aligns with the centre set of windows below the logo on the building behind it, despite this bringing more of the modern buildings into frame, which I was trying to avoid with the first shot. Also, I had a go at colour isolation, as the red really is very striking and deserves more of the spotlight. Usually, non-naturally coloured images aren’t my style, but I felt as though this warranted it.
Below, left: The viewpoint I used to capture the lightboat was beneath the Royal Victoria Dock Footbridge, the underside of which I thought at the time afforded something of an interesting view. However, whist exposing for the shadows beneath the bridge I overexposed the sky without realising, and could only save so much in post-production, leaving a somewhat garish image.
Below, right: Whilst heading to the DLR, I passed an interesting ‘old and new’ viewpoint of the dock cranes leaving a perfect gap for Canary Wharf, and thought that deserving of a picture. The greenery and beginnings of autumn colour in the foreground help to frame and soften the image, whilst the clouds are at just the right level of detail to fill in the top.
As with all grey weather, the lighting was quite hard to work with on this day, with there being a lot of contrast between the sky and objects on the ground. However, the rule I use is that, whilst a lot can be saved from under-exposure, with over-exposure there’s no going back. I found this visit was definitely a good opportunity for practicing my photography, despite the results not being ideal.
As promised, further visits to North Weald were in order, and with some of those starting quite early, several atmospheric shots presented themselves. The one to the right is taken from the extreme southern end of the airfield, looking north over the long runway and taking in the hangars to the left and Air Traffic Control tower to the right, as well as some of the famous poplars. Being early in the month, it wasn’t quite frosty, but still fairly chilly!
One morning, fog prevailed, and created some nice shots with the resident pair of Douglas C-47 Dakotas. The long view on the left above takes in a whole aircraft, as well as the early morning sky and softened background, but struggles for detail as the contrast is quite high. The the shot on the right above, however, benefits from being more zoomed-in, and allows for more detail on the fuselage as well as the additional detail of the control tower in the background.
I also managed to catch a pair of Jet Provosts parked in formation on a taxiway, a silver T4 and a red and white T5. It’s interesting how the differences between the marks become obvious when you look for them, such as the shape of the nose and canopy and the height of the tail.
Overall, some interesting sights spotted so far, and even more to come next month!
There are just a handful of extra pictures from this month, as I was kept very busy with work, only just managing to take over a hundred photos overall. Right: A paraglider transits during a smoky orange sunset. Below left: A Red Admiral (vanessa atalanta) butterfly alights for a snack on a partially rotten apple. Below right: A bumblebee busily pollinating a hollyhock (alcea rosea).
