Saturday walk along the River Thames and we finally had some clement weather, albeit not balmy.
I was trying out my new 25mm lens with a Firecrest 3.0 HD this weekend. Not the classic streaking clouds shot but was quite interesting. I have started to do more HDR images (this is not one of them) as I have seem some great YouTube videos on how to combine images subtly.
For the last couple of weeks before Christmas, I was in China on business. I spent my time in Shanghai and Qingdao. Unfortunately, in Qingdao, I did not have the chance to take any shots. However, I was fortunate enough whilst staying in Shanghai to have a day when the smog was not too heavy and the sun was out, albeit briefly.
After taking lots of shot of the river and Pudong, from the boulevard on The Bund, I spotted a raised platform and included the foreground Christmas bustle. To make the image more interesting, I used a combination of filters including a Polariser, Big Stopper and 0.9ND. I was fortunate that the lady in the yellow jacket hardly moved whilst I took this long exposure, which really anchors the shot for me.
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.
A few years ago, I was in the Canadian Rockies, travelling around Banff and Jasper National Parks. The shot for today was taken from an observation platform above Peyto Lake. It was not a great time of day to be shooting as it was close to midday but this really made the turquoise colour of the lake stand out all the more against the lush green of the surround forest, greyness of the mountain face and deep blue of the sky.
This was taken a few miles away, along the river bank above a raging torrent below. You can make out a young girl relaxing by the river, wearing red, to give you a size perspective of the scene.
Last week I was in Gothenburg for business as is usual in my role. After work, I headed over to the south side of the river to grab some end of day shots. This one is of the north side, called Lindholmen, where our new office is located.
This version really does not do the shot justice as this is the result of stitching 5 images together and cropping some of the scene to either side of the image.
A couple of other extra long exposure shots from last weekend. This one was taken close to the Millennium Bridge. As the river was low, I was able to walk down to the beach, to take a lower angle shot of the Thames and Shard. The sun had finally broken through the clod, albeit temporarily, to illuminate the scene and bath the Shard in light.
This next shot was of HMS Belfast, across the Thames, of the Walkie Talkie building with the Gherkin also visible. As the ship was floating on the river, it tended to bob around, so I diminished the length of the exposure to compensate. You can see this in comparison to the tub boats in the foreground, which are blurred.
This weekend, after gaining inspiration from a couple of YouTube tutorials, I tried my hand at some extra long exposure shots in London. The weather on Sunday was perfect, with a mixture of sun and cloud.
I walked around Tower Bridge and the London Assembly. However, it was the view from London Bridge that caught my eye. The image above is made up of 8 long exposure images stitched together. Each image was a 90 second exposure. The whole shot took around 15 minutes, including set up and transition time.
One thing to look out for is battery usage as extreme long exposure shots use up a lot of power, so I recommend carrying spares.
The shot below was my first shot of the day. Being a film photographer at heart, I used my handheld lightmeter plus Lee Filter Big Stopper app, to deduce the exposure.
I miss the big country. The violence of the weather, the sheer size of the landscape. Most of all, I miss nature. Singapore is so many things but alas, not natural. Everything here is outlandish, larger than life. Perhaps the weather in this image I took in California a couple of years ago is also as prodigious in its own way as Singapore is.
Two hours after I took this image, the rain had washed the road out leaving all timorous motorists stranded. However, I was in the world’s best off road car; a rental Ford Mustang convertible, which ploughed through the rushing waters. Although it leaking into the footwells as the water level rose above the base door height, the car made it. I can still recall the sight of several scared drivers disappearing behind me in my rear view mirror, all huddled motionless in their pick up trucks.
Just prior to the Frankfurt motorshow in September, I went out to Canada for a two week photoshoot. Starting off in Calgary, I headed west to Banff National Park. From here, I drove through all the surrounding national parks including Kootenay, Yoho and Jasper. Over the first ten days, I covered almost 2000 miles.
After returning to Calgary, I then flew further west to Victoria, capital of Vancouver Island. My good friend Justene Miller, a Canadian from Vancouver, gave me some excellent advice, to visit Tofino and Ucluelet, on the Pacific coast of the island. I was treated to a cloud rainbow, something I have never seen before.
I loved Canada, with its spectacular landscape and friendly locals. My only reservation is that the food is much like the US is pretty awful most of the time.
All Terrain Photography 