Early yesterday morning, I stood opposite the London Eye to watch the dawn of a new day in London. The shot above is a panorama of four shots stitched together of the south side of the River Thames. The image is almost 18k pixels in width.
The shot below was taken a few moments before that, as the first light of day broke behind the Wheel. The maintenance team still had the red lights on the wheel switched on and the so too for the Marriott County Hall Hotel.
Last couple of shots from Iceland. On the day I finally completed my circumnavigation of the island on my trusty cycle, I went for a wonder around the shoreline of Reykjavik. I was treated to the most glorious light across the bay. The yellow light house a beacon at twilight just as it was at night.
Prior to arriving in the capital, I had camped on the shoreline of Jökulsárlón. This image was taken close to midnight. As Iceland is just south of the Arctic Circle, it has little darkness in the summer. However, even though it was meant to be the hottest time of the year, it was chilly, with temperatures still very much in single figures that evening.
West Witterings – Shot 2
Following on from my last entry, here is another shot from the sequence I shot in West Sussex, at West Witterings beach in December 2015. This shot was taken using a Lee Filter Big Stopper about 10 minutes after the previous shot. You can see the rain falling in the distance, beneath the cloud. Quite a surreal scene.
West Witterings – Shot 3
Shortly afterwards, the sun climbed high enough in the sky and started to light the clouds above the main bank. I had to wait another half an hour until the sun had completely cleared the main bank of cloud in the scene and that created a completely new view of Witterings. Truly a stunning morning.
West Witterings – Shot 1
Before leaving the UK for Christmas with my family in Singapore, I headed down to West Witterings, one of my favourite childhood beaches. The morning was cold, wind lashed and stormy. All of which made for fantastic clouds and changes in light.
The image for today’s shot of the day is one of a series of five shots I took that morning, that I will publish over the next few entries. This was the moment the overhead storm relented momentarily, giving the sun a brief reprieve to broke through the cloud and washed the beach in golden light.
Warning, if you head to Witterings, remember to take £1 coin or change with you as you have to pay to drive into the car park behind the beach. Otherwise, it is a long walk.
A few years ago, I went to the Dolomites, the Italian part of the Alps, to do some via ferrata and trekking. We had just descended form a glacier and were traversing along the mountain line, before dropping down into the valley below. Even though it was mid summer, there was still snow on the ground in places.
If I recall correctly, I think we were around 3000m altitude. We stayed in a large refugio a did day long treks. One key memory I have of this trip was that I did not know any of the group and spent much of the days lost in deep thought. Where better to have an euphony?
At the end of 2014, I travelled up to Hong Kong from Singapore, where the weather was mercifully cooler than the incessant heat of the tropics. That said, I have never found 15 degrees Celsius so cold.
One morning, I took a gander along the path that runs circumnavigates the Peak, taking in views of Aberdeen Bay on one side with Hong Kong downtown and Kowloon Bay beyond on the other. This shot was taken on Boxing Day. The smog filtered the early rays of sunshine, dirtying the blue sky with hues of brown and grey.
What struck me most was more based about my Western sensitivities. Hong Kong had hardly missed a beat even though we were in the middle of the Christmas holidays. Then again, I do not believe that Hong Kong ever truly sleeps.
Dreaming of the summer nights at Bantham Bay in Devon, looking into the sun with no one around. Actually, the reason there was no one around was because it was Easter 2013 and it was bloody freezing. Still, one way to get such a beautiful beach all to oneself.
Long time since my last post.
Over the Easter weekend, I was fortunate to have some time on my hands and ventured over to Borneo (Sabah, Malaysia) to visit Kota Kinabalu and attempt to climb Mount Kinabalu. After completing the 4095m climb at 5am in the morning, I sat on a freezing summit, a whisker from the equator, to watch the early morning sunrise.
Soon after, I dropped a couple of hundred metres to the start of the highest via Ferrata route in the world, to commence a 1.2km route. Although this does not sound all that spectacular, when you are almost 4km up, believe me, there are some giddy moments, especially the first part of the route that takes you vertically off the start ledge.
Alas, I was too busy having fun on the via Ferrata to snap any photos. Here are a couple of images from other climbers on the route to give you an idea of the experience.
Back in 2011, I was on assignment for Lonely Planet in South America, gathering some new shots for their online library. This was taken in the middle of nowhere in southern Bolivia, less than 100 miles form the Chilean and Argentinian borders, close to the Salar de Uyuni. It was late afternoon and the heat of the day in the altiplano desert was rapidly evapourating as the steely grip of night gathered traction.
Temperatures regularly drop to -20 degrees Celsius. That night was no exception.
All Terrain Photography 