One New Change Revisited.............er...Revisited!

I really don’t want to go over old ground as my opinion of this developement has been covered here and here but I just wanted to round things off by commenting on the view from the building rather than the unredeemable view of it!

I think that I was particularly lucky with the timing of my visit. I had intended to get there in full daylight but best laid plans and all that………..the light was rapidly fading by the time I walked in between the legs of the building. I took the glass lift, conveniently located in the building's crotch, directly up to the terrace area.

The southern area is relatively small and disappointing It has a quite tall and steeply angled glass wall, presumably to prevent you throwing yourself off in desperation. However, the northern section is something else altogether. Angular and sloping down towards St Paul’s, it really is quite dramatic. As you walk down towards the west, the focus of your attention really is the great dome of St P’s but there is so much more. The wall on this section is of a much more manageable height and, although you do get a view to the north the thing that really grabs you is the vista to the south.

As I said, I was very lucky with the timing. It was very cold, the sky was crystal clear, deep blue and heading towards black. South London was lighting up and never looked better. It really was something to be seen.
I suppose that, at some time, I will have to go back to see what it looks like in broad daylight, but I doubt that it will have the impact of that first visit.

 My opinion of the rest of the building has not changed. There are shops and restaurants, if that is your kind of thing, but I can only recommend the terrace as being worthy of your time. If you are passing, do go up and take a look.

Take Your Camera Out At Night

Cameras are not just for sunny days, high days and holidays. They are for use all year round, at any time of the day or night and this is the perfect time of the year to use it on the streets and after dark.
I suppose that if you want to do this properly, you really need to give it a great deal of thought, work out exactly what want from the shoot, plan your locations and equip yourself with a tripod, cable release or remote control and half a dozen other “useful” accessories ………………….. but to hell with that. Just get out there and shoot stuff!

 London is a fantastic place for night photography, although calling it night photography is a bit of a misnomer, sometimes twilight is the best time as the residual light gives some definition to the sky and helps to make the subject stand out from its background. Look around you as the light begins to fail and you will soon see suitable subjects appearing just about everywhere. Buildings illuminated either internally or externally. Featured lighting and at this time of year, in particular, Christmas decorations. Reflections in windows or on shiny surfaces and, of course, the river and its environs.

Start out just by using your camera’s auto setting and see how things work out. Then move on to trying the various program options.. Virtually every camera will have a night option, an obvious starting point, but try the other settings too. This is digital, you are not going to do the camera any harm, it won’t cost you anything and you can delete all of the pics that just don’t work.

A tripod is, of course, the ideal accessory for this kind of photography. As the light fails, shutter speeds inevitably get longer, and equally inevitably shaky hands begin to come into play, particularly as the weather gets colder. As useful as tripods are, they are a bit of a pain to haul around with you. Very often you can get away with hand holding (try breathing in deeply and slowly exhaling as you release the shutter, it sounds strange, but it really can help!). Otherwise try wedging yourself into a corner, resting your elbows on a wall or actually resting the camera on a solid surface. A small bean bag (either a purpose made item or a home made job) or even a rolled up wooly hat or a pair of gloves will help you to move the camera around to enable you to frame the shot properly. Just use a little imagination and try different ideas, you will eventually find what suits you. A small point to remember if you are shooting on a bridge is that bridges move and this movement will result in the blurring of your photograph. As heavy traffic passes you will feel the vibration under your feet just wait a few seconds until that traffic has passed. And then fire off the shot.

It is also worth considering what you intend to do with the photograph. If you only need small or low res images you can get away with a lot more than if you intend you intend to print at large sizes or view at full screen on a decent sized monitor.

The best thing to do is just try it. You’ll get some good shots and you’ll get some very bad shots but when you’ve had a few decent ones you may well find yourself hooked.

Have fun!



For more night shots click here

Experiments In Light and Motion

Pretentious title, oh yes, but not a pretentious subject. There are all kinds of arguments among “serious” photographers, for and against digital cameras, but as I don’t fit into the serious category I won’t be going into them here.

For me, digital was a revelation and rekindled my interest in photography. It gave me the freedom to wander the streets taking pics of anything and everything that catches my eye without spending a fortune on film and processing and most importantly without having to wait to check the results. It also gave me the freedom to experiment.

All photography should be fun and as well as taking conventional pics, I do like to play with light. It doesn’t take a great deal of effort and , providing your camera has some form of manual control, you don’t need any fancy equipment. Any SLR and many compact cameras will allow you to set a long exposure time. All you need then is a dark place and a light source.

Forget the rule book, point your camera at the light source, press the button and move the camera while the shutter is open, simple. If you have a manual zoom, use it while the shutter is open. Be adventurous and do both at the same time. You can even hold the zoom ring steady and rotate the camera instead. Experiment with different shutter speeds and apertures. It doesn’t really matter, providing you don’t drop it, none of this is going to do the camera any harm, and if you don’t like the results just delete them.

If you want to go a little further, try using your camera in a moving vehicle, or fix the camera on a tripod and move the light source instead. The possibilities are endless
.

On the whole, the results are unpredictable but that is part of the fun and with some practice you can give the pictures some sort of form.

Just try it, you might like it!

 

There are more examples in my Motion Set here http://www.flickr.com/photos/malcnhg/sets/72157603093980490/