Bankside | Weekly Photo #65
Looking back through my last 64 Weekly Photo posts, I see that I’ve never included a photo of this composition with the Millennium Bridge leading to St Paul’s Cathedral, even though I have photographed it on countless occasions and come away with a few decent shots of it, so, after giving it some thought, I think I now know why I’ve not shared one to date.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 21mm | 71 Seconds | f/10 | ISO200
You’ve probably heard this quote, or a variation of it before: “Perfect is the enemy of good” which is kind of how I feel about photographing this view in London. It is one of the most popular views to photograph and for that reason, there are so many excellent versions of this image out there. Over the years, I’ve repeatedly visited this spot to capture something better, more epic than I have seen so far and the problem with that is the chances of doing so are, in reality, pretty low. I probably visit this spot every other month when I think the conditions look good to shoot in so when you think about it, that’s only 6 times a year. I want to capture a long exposure, similar to this composition, but with a bit more drama. I want the clouds heading towards or away from me to create some strong lead on lines that mirror the bridge. So far this is the closest I have come to getting that shot.
I decided to share this photo as a bit of a lesson for me really. I have been so caught up in trying to capture the photo I envisage in my mind, I have wrongly dismissed some of the other good photos I have taken, so, it serves as a bit of a reminder to me that although the holy grail is to capture the perfect shot at a particular location, I need to appreciate and not dismiss the photos I capture along the way.
I took this photo in July 2019 while walking around Bankside in London. Hoping for some favourable conditions, I headed to this spot in front of the Tate Modern, which provides this great composition of the Millennium Bridge which leads the eye over the River Thames towards St Paul’s Cathedral. For this long exposure shot, I used my Fujifilm XT2, XF18-55mm lens and my Formatt-Hitech 10-stop ND filter. As there was quite a lot of cloud cover, the light from the sun would come and go so I needed to wait for a large enough gap in the clouds to take this shot while the sun was hitting the bridge and dome.
At this time of day, the area is still busy with locals and tourists, especially during the summer months, so, another advantage of using the 10-stop filter and taking a long exposure is it will blur all of the people crossing the bridge out of the image. With my aperture and ISO dialled in (f/10, ISO200) I got a 71-second exposure making it appear that nobody was crossing the bridge while the shot was taken. In reality, there were plenty but luckily no one stopped for a selfie while crossing.
Although I really like this photo, the clouds lack the definition and subsequent drama I was looking for which means I’ll certainly be returning again soon. It’s possible I’ll never get the image I’m looking for, but I guess that’s part of the game we landscape photographers play. We are slaves to the elements and let’s face it, if it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth doing, right?
Until 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.