Starflyer | Weekly Photo #60
This time of year, I tend to slow down my photography a little as the days are long and there are only so many 3am sunrise shoots I can stomach before my sleep-deprived body says enough is enough but with three months of the year written off already, I’ve been making an effort to get out in the early morning and late evening to capture photos and it’s certainly taking its toll. With the uncertainty of a second wave lingering over us, I keep going because you never know if we might be told to stay home again.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 46mm | 1/12th Second | f/7.1 | ISO200
Despite the late nights traveling home, I love to take sunset photos in London during the summer months. There’s always a great vibe around and the warmer weather makes the whole experience a lot more pleasant.
I took this photo of the London Eye while crossing Waterloo Bridge at sunset. I knew the composition well, but I wanted to capture the Starflyer whilst it was up in the air to help balance the composition and add a bit more life and activity to complement what looks like a party on the boat in the foreground. The Starflyer seemed to take an age to load between each ride and it took me a few attempts to dial in the right settings to capture the right amount of movement as the ride rotated around, so, what I thought would take just a couple of minutes to capture, turned out to be much longer. I did try to take the shot at a longer shutter speed but the swings and chains just blurred out completely, so in order for them to be a feature and show some movement, I ended up going with a shutter speed of 1/12th second.
I think I will revisit this spot when the sun has set and the lights are on as I think capturing the movement of the Starflyer and the London Eye while lit up with a long exposure could look pretty awesome and I don’t think I’ll have to wait too long as slowly but surely London is starting to open its doors once again.
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.