3 Minutes in London | Weekly Photo #67
One of the reasons I like to take long exposure photos of a cityscape is that not only can it help to simplify a potentially cluttered image by blurring out distractions, but in the right conditions, it can also add a sense of energy, movement and dynamism into a scene and that’s what I think I’ve captured in the photo shown here.
Fujifilm X-T10 | XF10-24mm | 13mm | 180 Seconds | f/9 | ISO200
I took the photo from Tower Bridge in London late one evening in Summer 2017. It was back when the Fujifilm X-T10 was my primary shooter which I used along with the wide-angle XF10-24mm lens to take this photo. I don’t often shoot quite as wide as I’m usually left with lots of distortion in the architecture that lines the river, but I think it works quite well here. The wider field of view allows more of the sky to be included and gives the impression the moving clouds are spreading apart as they get closer to the camera, creating some strong lead-in lines that bring the eye back towards the middle of the frame.
Along with an aperture of f/9 and ISO of 200, I used a 10-stop Formatt-Hitech filter to reduce the light hitting the sensor and stretching the exposure all the way to 3 minutes giving the river a smooth, glass-like look and those streaky clouds in the sky.
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.