Spinning Wheel | Weekly Photo #43
Before I dive into this week’s post, I wanted to let you know about an article I published last week all about printing the photos we take. In the article, I talk about what I’ve printed recently and why I think it’s so important for all photographers to commit ink to paper and the benefits it can bring to your craft. I decided to share the article now as with many of us on lockdown due to the global pandemic and unable to head out to take photos, I honestly feel this is a good opportunity to go through some of your most important work and have a go at printing some photos. For people that love their photos, there is nothing like holding them in your hand as physical, tactile pieces of art. You can find the article on my blog here: Why every photographer should print their photos.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 21mm | 95 Seconds | f/7.1 | ISO200
I haven’t shared a long exposure for a few weeks now and as I was rummaging through my photos searching for this week’s post, I came across this photo of the London Eye which was taken from my favourite vantage point looking down the River Thames from the Golden Jubilee Bridge. One of the reasons I take long exposure photos is that it allows me to remove some of the clutter from the image such as the ripples in the water or in this case, smooth the motion of the London Eye and this composition suits this approach perfectly as I can exclude the taller buildings which are just out of frame on the left allowing this modern icon to stand tall and dominant in the frame and simplifying the composition even more.
In my main cityscape kit, I use the Formatt-Hitech 85mm system and for this photo, I used their 10-stop ND filter to give me the shutter speed I wanted to smooth out any movement in the scene. The London Eye moves quite slowly and takes around 30 minutes to go all the way around which means if the exposure is too short, all you really get is a bunch of slightly blurry passenger capsules. To get this effect that makes the London Eye appear to be spinning more rapidly, the exposure really needs to be at least 30 seconds or in this case, with the ambient light fading fast, I ended up with a 95-second exposure.
Shooting from this spot is not without its challenges when taking longer exposures like this. First off, the bridge is a bit wobbly. The Golden Jubilee Bridge is attached to the older Hungerford Bridge and when a train crosses, everything shakes a little which can cause some camera shake. Also, as the camera is pointed down the Thames, the river traffic takes longer to pass through the frame and when taking long exposures, finding the right gap to take a photo can be difficult, to say the least. Looking through Lightroom at the photos from that evening, of the 10-15 shots I took, this is the only photo I managed that was both sharp and free of ghostly looking riverboats in the water.
I visit this location regularly enough and more often than not, leave without a shot in the bag and for those times I do leave empty-handed, I have to remind myself that the hunt is as important as the catch which can be a bitter pill to swallow.
Stay safe and well while we all get through these uncertain times and I’ll talk to you next week.
Trevor
This post is featured in my Weekly Photo series where I post a new photo every Monday. To have this delivered directly to your inbox, you can subscribe to the mailing list here.