This month I spent a lot of time in London, which proved to be a perfect practice field for one of my favourite skills: long exposures. Even after the sky is dark, the city’s streets are lit by signs, lights, and traffic, and the latter in particular really adds something special to a photograph taken at night.
My first journey started at Trafalgar Square, where the illuminated fountains and central Christmas tree gave me excellent subjects to arrange in a number of compositions. The pools of water also provided the opportunity of reflections, though as the water was not perfectly still, these were only ever going to be rough. Even just colour and light certainly add to the shots, though, and the water still holds a quality of movement even in a still image.
The bus that I waited for in the bottom right photo gave me the idea of focusing more deliberately on the traffic, rather than using it just as an addition, and I soon found that the traffic island to the south of the square provided a panorama of possibilities. The main attraction was to be surrounded by traffic, particularly a large number of the famous double-decker busses, as well as having views to interesting backgrounds, such as the view down Whitehall to the Palace of Westminster.
However, as much as you want busses in your shots sometimes, there are moments when they are just too much. Of the two photos below, guess which one is closer to what I had in mind when I set the shot up.
If you guessed the one on the right, then you would be correct; a smattering of traffic lights below the famous lions, National Portrait Gallery faรงade, and seasonal Christmas tree. Not just a blur of bus, as on the left, obscuring all of the above. Though, saying that, there was a shot (below left) which I quite liked which was mostly bus blur, though in my opinion the appeal comes from the fact that you can mostly see through it, particularly on the left hand side of the image, and it acts more as a filter than as a subject. It still isn’t an ideal example of a long exposure, to me, but definitely something to learn from.
Also from that traffic island, the view down Whitehall beckoned, and particularly a tree of traffic lights growing above a pedestrian crossing. With the combined powers of in-camera multiple exposures and post-processing editing, I managed to combine two photos into one (below right) and get all the lights on at once. Not realistic, but certainly quite pretty! The red streaks were an unintentional added bonus.
The short walk down Whitehall to the river also gave me some lessons- such as don’t bother shooting long exposures into oncoming traffic, as the bright headlights will blot out absolutely everything. This applies particularly if you have a very short tripod and are at the same level as said headlights. An annoying discovery, but one that only has to be made once- I hope.
Arriving at the river, I was at once drawn to the London Eye, as it was illuminated wonderfully against the dark sky. I initially thought that it wasn’t moving, reasonable as the wind felt gusty, but it turned out that it was turning, albeit very slowly. This foiled my plans for a long exposure showing a full outside ring of blurred pods, as I simply didn’t have the time to do a five or ten minute exposure- or the storage space, or knowledge.
Instead, I settled for wandering around and capturing a few views from and of the local bridges, which in themselves were very good subjects. London has a lot of good lighting design; the illumination of the underside of Westminster Bridge (right, 5s, f/8, ISO 160) so that both the colour and the texture are reminiscent of Parliament is a godsend for photographic composition.
Above left: The lights of the high rises in the south begged to be captured, making the buildings stand out against a sky they would otherwise blend into easily. 3s, f/6.4, ISO 160. Above right: Embankment Station rises behind the London Eye Waterloo Pier river boat gantry. 3s, f/8, ISO 160.
An interesting but fairly tiring evening, this visit certainly produced some of the desired results, and failing that taught me valuable lessons that I shall take with me into my new work.
On another occasion I visited the Tower Of London, and took full advantage of the winter sunlight which coloured the old stones as honey and gold- in the morning, anyway. Rain swept in during the afternoon, and I eventually dived back down Tower Hill to get out of the damp, but left having completed almost the full tour, and taken a lot of pictures. I found the Tower busy but not cramped, and it was easy enough to wait for other tourists to move on to get clean shots at the things I wanted.
Obviously, the exteriors were one of the main draws of this location, with the old stone buildings contrasting starkly with the forest of glass high-rises which rose in the background. To the occasional blast of HMS Belfast’s siren, I walked the battlements and the courtyard taking in the different views afforded from different levels, lining up shots and learning about the palace. Yes, I wasn’t primarily there to take photos- but it so happened that I had my camera, and my tripod, and the good views…and the rest is history.
The interiors also had their number of hidden gems. Apart from the information boards and displays, moments of vivid colour were found in the stained glass windows of the many chapels, as shown on the right above. Also, the led lines in the old windows frequently framed more modern views outside, particularly those out across the river towards the Shard and HMS Belfast. So much history in such a small geographical area!
I mixed my landscapes and architecture with portraiture, of both the resident yeoman warders (left) and some actors who were performing festive tales in an open-air moving theatre (right). Capturing the ‘interesting’ movements of a subject still alludes me most of the time; as soon as I’ve seen that an arm is pointing, it’s stopped, and my photo would be wasted. Working on my portraiture is going to be a big part of my improvement going forward.
Of course, with a visit to the Tower Of London, there is the inherent fascination of the resident ravens, by far my favourite of the palace’s inhabitants. There are only seven, but they are very large birds, and not afraid of the public at all. They seemed to have a lot of fun posing for pictures, hopping about obligingly on the old stone walls and rubbing their beaks as thought to sharpen them for a kill. One in particular installed itself on a handrail at the turn of a staircase, and sat so stock still as to look like a statue. Indeed, I first thought that it was fake, and I saw several people walk past it without even a glance. I, though, must have climbed and descended that set of stairs about fifteen times in total, getting in and out of people’s paths and trying to take a good picture of this blue-tagged raven.
For some unknown reason- possibly the damp, possibly the rushed circumstances, possibly the dark- my autofocus refused to function for most of my attempts. Between the rain, the fact that it was sitting on the handrail of a busy staircase, and the fading light, I took in excess of twenty five photos of this raven, and only had two or three decent results. They are, though, pretty good results. The one on the left is almost portraiture, but the right has a more mysterious feeling to it, with the bird in silhouette.
Finally, as day turned to night and I left for the tube, I got a last few shots of the city falling asleep. Warm lights filled buildings, as shown above, and Tower Bridge was outlined in light strips and lit from both above and below. A pretty end to a very good day, working in an unusual setting for me and with a very different style of subject matter.
Although December is one of the quietest months for aviation, a few visits to North Weald were made this month, producing a handful of good results. Whilst the Westland Wasp is a familiar sight, G-CMBE (below left) is not the usual visitor. The C-47 Skytrain N147DC (below middle) is also not a normal sight, despite being an airfield resident, but I was glad to be able to catch it sitting outside its hangar on one of the few frosty mornings which occurred this month. The most unexpected visitor was G-HTML- a microlight (below right).
One of the handful of Spitfires which calls the airfield home also made an appearance. Although I wasn’t able to get very close, I still tried to work to get the prop disc, despite not being initially successful. The settings which had worked for helicopters, using a baseline shutter speed of 1/60s, were simply not producing the same results for the four-bladed prop of the Spitfire.
The three photos below are myself working towards a full yellow circle- thankfully, the ends of the blades were coloured, as the rest of the disc is practically invisible against the dark background, particularly on a small LCD screen. Below left: 1/60s, f/6.7, ISO 160. Below middle: 1/50s, f/6.7, ISO 160. Below right: 1/40s, f/7.1, ISO 160.
All the time I was working towards a solution, I was worried that the Spitfire might leave before I found it. My other concern was that, as I decreased the shutter speed, the possibility of overexposure grew in the back of my mind, but thankfully it never realised itself. However, the real remedy turned out to be not my settings but those of the Spitfire itself. As soon as the throttle was increased out of idle, the disc made itself perfectly apparent. Right: The increase to taxi power made all the difference. 1/40s, f/6.7, ISO 160.
There are a good few extra images from this month, resulting from some more agreeable weather and subsequent walks. The photo to the left is from a long exposure practice in another setting, with this great reflection. My camera was actually sitting on the kerb for this one, not a tripod, so the foreground is accentuated. The puddle was small, and I wanted to make the most of it! 3s, f/14, ISO 1000.
