Veterans | Weekly Photo #118

Photographically speaking, I’m in a bit of a slump. It feels like such a long time since I’ve stood behind the camera feeling that buzz of excitement that I’ve captured a banger and can’t wait to get it home and see the photo on the big screen or maybe even printed. It seems every time I head out at the moment, the conditions are dull and uninspiring so I’m really having to dig deep to get even an average looking photo. As a result, I’m lacking inspiration and not feeling much love for my photography at the moment.

But what to do? Well, one thing I’m a lot better at these days is reminding myself that “it’s just photography”. I do it for the love of it, not because I have to. This helps remove any unnecessary pressure I put on myself while I’m out in the field with my camera. Next up, I remind myself that this is just a natural process and all creatives will, at some point go through this and they will either wait for the slump to pass on its own, or like me, just remove the pressure to get the camera out and just get out there and enjoy the great outdoors and just be there, ready for when inspiration hits once again.

I appreciate that’s not a particularly positive opening to this week’s blog but I want to keep this blog as open and honest as I can and having been through many peaks and troughs with my own photography over the years, a veteran if you will, I wanted to share with you how I tackle these inevitable slumps by removing any pressure on myself to take photos, being content with just being out there exploring, surrounded by mother nature.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 28mm | 1.5 Seconds | f/8 | ISO400

If I’m in a trough right now, then back in June when I took this photo, I think that was more of a peak. Morning after morning I had beautiful conditions to photograph the woodland and although I couldn’t make the most of it on every occasion (I still consider myself a woodland photography novice) I did manage to grab a healthy crop of photos nonetheless.

This photo was taken in a National Trust woodland in Kent, just 25 minutes from where I live. It’s not particularly large but with a nice mix of trees and being rather exposed up on the Kent weald it gets its fair share of the changeable weather from misty mornings and if last winter is anything to go by, plenty of snowfall.

After starting off in the eastern side of the woodland, the fog was so thick and the foliage so dense, I didn’t have enough light or visibility to seek out any useful compositions. I wandered around for a good hour, hoping something would catch my eye, but this part of the woodland was giving nothing away that morning so I decided to change things up and head across to the western edge in the hope of something different. The western side of the woodland is a little more exposed and has more open areas which I hoped would allow more light to shine through and help with finding a nice composition.

I decided to head to this spot as I had photographed it before during the autumn and I really liked the strong, interesting shapes of these veteran trees that appear to stand guard on the edge of a clearing. As I arrived, I was welcomed by this beautiful scene with hazy light shining through the thinning fog, creating this fantastic soft light illuminating the side of the trees. Things were looking up so out came the camera and tripod and I started to dial in the composition.

I really like the depth in this scene created by the mist on the left-hand side and the trees getting gradually softer as they get further away from the camera. That along with the strong, partly silhouetted shapes of the trees to the right, I dialled in my camera settings and got to work. I took two or three different compositions in the end and this is one of my favourites from the morning’s shoot.

Until next week (where I hope my slump will have improved somewhat).

Cheers.

Trevor

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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.

Into The Void | Weekly Photo #117

Boy, do I miss spending time in London. I’ve visited a handful of times in the last few months but nowhere near as much as I’d like. This is predominantly due to the various lockdowns and restrictions we’ve all been subject to but more recently, while I’ve had the freedom to venture into the city, I’ve chosen to focus my photography (excuse the pun!) on woodland and the natural landscape.

At first, this was due to necessity as I either needed to find something else to take photos of or I stopped altogether until this whole saga has blown over, but I’ve since grown increasingly fond of this new subject and although I’m not going to stop photographing London in the long term, I feel I still have lots more to do and improve upon while out taking photos in the woodland or along the Sussex coast.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 10mm | 1/35th Second | f/10 | ISO200

This is a photo of London I’d been after for a while. I wanted to take a look up-photo of the high-rise buildings in the city on a foggy day and I actually came really close to getting it when I took this picture here back in March 2020. Unfortunately, on that day I wasn’t quick enough and the fog lifted as I was making my way into the city, but later the same year, it all came together.

After arriving in a foggy London at sunrise (although the sun was nowhere to be seen), I started off on London Bridge. I knew time was against me, but I just couldn’t resist spending a few minutes taking some atmospheric photos along the River Thames before heading into the city to capture that picture I had been hunting down for so long. You can see some of those photos in the blog post I’ve shared below.

Once on location and surrounded by these architectural giants, it was time to hastily set up the camera before the fog started to lift even further. I spread the tripod as low to the ground as possible and mounted my Fujifilm XT2 camera with a wide-angle 10-24mm lens. By getting as low as I could along with using the wide-angle lens, I could include as much of the surrounding buildings as possible, elongating those lines that draw the attention from the corners, all the way up and into the misty void above. I rotated the camera around, purposely placing the buildings into the corners which provided a much better composition to my eye.

With the camera so close to the ground, pointing directly up, even with an articulated screen, I had to get down low, almost laying down next to the camera to see what I was photographing. This is where having the Fujifilm X-series comes into its own as all of the main camera controls can be accessed through the analogue dials rather than digging through menus so even in awkward positions like this, I could still adjust my settings with relative ease. I must have looked a sight to the early commuters passing by as they headed into the surrounding offices but sometimes you’ve just got to ignore the strange looks when the photo you’ve been chasing for so long is on the cards.

I like the contrast offered by the darker foreground set against the bright foggy sky and along with the almost monochromatic look of the photo, it has a bit of a high key black and white feel to it which I think works quite well. My only real complaint (which I could do very little about) is the empty space up in the top left. I would have liked that building to be taller to help fill the space and add balance, but you can’t win them all!

As I mentioned above, I took a handful of photos while out in London on that foggy November morning and I shared more of them in this “on location” blog post I wrote below.

Whilst I’m still almost exclusively working from home, I suspect I will continue exploring and photographing the natural landscape but I suspect it won’t be long before I am needed back in the London office more regularly and I think it’s then that I will be back photographing the city more often, hopefully bringing with me some of the new skills and techniques I’ve picked up during this extended hiatus.

Until next week.

Trevor

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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.

Misty Path | Weekly Photo #116

I’ve been quite busy over the few weeks and although I’ve been out with the camera here and there, photography has had to take a bit of a back seat during this time. Towards the end of July, I spent a week with my family in the beautiful county of Cornwall, down on England’s south coast. Although it was predominantly a family holiday, I did get to take the “proper” camera out for a couple of sunrise shoots both in the woodland to photograph some small waterfalls and along the coast to capture a snippet of Cornwall’s fantastic shoreline.

Shortly after returning from a rather active week in Cornwall, we travelled to Crete for 2 weeks of r&r in the sun. Although I’ve been to Greece a few times in the past, it was our first time visiting Crete and what little we saw of the island, it was incredibly beautiful. I rarely travel without my camera and this was no different so again, as I did in Cornwall, I ventured out a few times to take a few landscape photos while I was there.

I have lots of photos to process but I hope to share one of two of them here soon enough.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 12mm | 0.4 Seconds | f/9 | ISO400

Back to this week’s photo.

When I started taking my woodland photography a bit more seriously, I avoided including footpaths in my photos. I felt all my woodland photos should be 100% natural, unspoiled, and without evidence of man. Although that's still the case for many locations I photograph, I quickly realised that this didn’t always tell the full story of the woodland I was in and how not only are they important to the plants and animals that live there, but these spaces are also important to people too, and if we look after them properly, the subtle marks we leave on them, such as these trodden pathways are also important to include when telling the full story. These days, I can’t get enough of them as compositionally, they work well to lead your eye through the frame and into the photo.

I took this photo in a local woodland just minutes from my home. It’s a varied woodland, set upon a hill along the North Downs (AONB) and although not particularly high (250ft), it does seem to get its fair share of misty/foggy conditions when the clouds are low. Being so close to my home and with a good chance of mist and fog, I often visit this woodland with the camera. Here are a couple of photos I’ve previously shared from this location:

• Garlic Hill, taken back in the spring.

• Chaotic Rhythm, a tangled, misty scene I photographed back in the winter.

On this wet, foggy day back in late spring, this group of trees in the distance caught my eye. I liked how they looked surrounded by the mist, so I decided to set the camera up, using the path as a part of the composition leading the eye towards the trees. Stepping off the footpath to the left, to allow the path to enter the frame on the bottom right, I felt there was too much visual weight on the top right-hand side caused by the larger tree closest to the camera. I needed something to balance the composition and I solved this by getting low to the ground to include these vibrant green leaves on the bottom left corner which did the job nicely.

With the camera on the tripod around a foot off the ground, I mounted my 10-24mm wide-angle lens. I chose to go wide for this shot as the leaves in the foreground would appear bigger and more of the footpath would be included in the frame to the right. I also used a circular polariser filter as the reflections created by the wet leaves were a little too distracting and this filter is perfect for cutting out those reflections while at the same time, making the colours pop.

With the foreground so close to the lens, even with a smaller aperture, I knew I wouldn’t be able to get the shot acceptability sharp from front to back, so a focus stack was needed. I dialled in the settings (see under the photo above) and took three or four separate shots, each one focused on a different part of the image.

Back in post, I used Photoshop to blend the mages together using the “Auto-blend layers” option, creating a single photo that is sharp from front to back. There was a bit more to it, as some fine-tuning was needed to correct some issues with the blend as it was a bit gusty and the branches had moved a bit between exposures, but it was straight forward enough, and I’m really pleased with how this one turned out.

Until next week.

Trevor

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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.

Clifton Bridge | Weekly Photo #115

Last year, I spent a long weekend with my family and close friends in Bristol which, for those not familiar with where that is, it’s a city in the southwest of England. Although it was a family trip, I did manage to sneak out with the “proper camera” a couple of times, one being to photograph the famous Clifton Suspension Bridge. Being a spur of the moment decision to head out, leaving no time to plan, this Grade I listed building, a symbol of Bristol often seen on postcards was an obvious choice.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 20mm | 8 Seconds | f/10 | ISO200

Once parked and on location, I hunted around for a good vantage point and eventually went with this one here which places the Clifton Tower on the left-hand third with the bridge deck heading off into the distance across the Avon Gorge. With what would end up as the best light fast approaching, I hastily set up my tripod and camera and carefully lined up my composition. With so much dynamic range between the bright cloudless sky on the horizon and the dark shadows down the gorge, I needed to bracket the exposures to make sure I captured as much detail as possible, which I could then blend together later in post.

As I stood there firing off the shutter, it dawned on me that nothing was crossing the bridge. Not one car or pedestrian had crossed in the 10 or so minutes I’d been standing there. It turns out I had picked the perfect time to photograph the bridge free of vehicle and foot traffic as it was closed for routine maintenance. What a stroke of luck!

Although the final photo looked ok, there’s actually a lot more going un under the hood. Not only is this a bracketed exposure blend, but it’s also a time blend, as after I’d merged the 3 bracketed exposures together and finished up with the edit, the photo was still looking a bit flat and to my eyes, was missing a finishing touch. That’s where the time blend comes in.

Back on location and not long after I took the three bracketed photos, the light levels dipped and the streetlights on the bridge turned on. During this time I had continued to shoot, keeping the camera in the exact same spot meaning I could seamlessly blend the lights into the bracketed exposure I took a few minutes before which worked really well and injected a touch of much-needed life into the final image.

During this trip to Bristol, I made one other trip out with the camera and paid an early morning visit to Burnham-on-Sea to photograph the well-known lighthouse on the beach. Although the tide was out, I had some beautiful sunrise conditions with some pastel magenta colours in the sky. I’ll be posting that photo here very soon.

Until next week.

Trevor

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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.

Museum Ship | Weekly Photo #114

I’ve mentioned before that when I take photos of subjects that look like they have a story to tell, I almost always do a little research to learn more about their history. I say “almost always” as I’ve photographed HMS Belfast numerous times and shared one or two photos of her on this blog but this is the first time I’ve gone to the effort of actually reading up on this Town-class light cruiser’s epic journey, from her launch in 1938, her life in the Royal Navy to eventually docking here, along the Thames in 1971 and seeing out her retirement as a floating war museum.

You may notice I refer to HMS Belfast as “she” or “her”, here’s why: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/why-do-ships-have-a-gender

HMS Belfast: A very brief history.

After her launch, HMS Belfast was almost immediately thrust into action after the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1939, she was struck by a German mine and was seriously considered being scrapped, however, there was a change of heart and she sat out of the war for 2+ years while receiving extensive repair and upgrades to firepower, radar and armour and off she went again in 1942 to play her part. Involved in operations to escort convoys to the Soviet Union and playing an important role in the Battle of North Cape, arguably her most notable involvement was in the 1944 Operation Overlord where she supported the famous Normandy Landings.

After seeing out the Second World War in the Pacific and later involved in the Korean War in the early ’50s, HMS Belfast was put in reserve in 1963. The warship’s final battle was for her own survival as in 1968 the government decided to scrap the ageing warship. Thankfully, after much negotiation, in 1971 the ship was eventually handed over to the HMS Belfast Trust and moved to this spot along the River Thames and opened up to the public. HMS Belfast became a branch of the Imperial War Museum in 1978 and to this date remains one of the more popular tourist attractions in London.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Belfast

Fujifilm X-T30 | XF18-55mm | 20mm | 3.7 Seconds | f/11 | ISO160

It was a fantastic morning for photography in London. From the moment I got off the train and walked over to More London, I knew there was potential for some nice sunrise cityscapes of London. I spent some time over there photographing Tower Bridge using one of the sculptures that belonged to the “Full Stop” art installation as a foreground. You can see the final result of that photo and more about the art installation here: London “Full Stop”.

Finished at More London, I walked west along the Thames to this spot, which provides a great view of 3 London icons, Tower Bridge, The Tower of London, and HMS Belfast. At this point, the sun had risen and although there was still plenty of cloud about, some sunlight was shining through and lighting up the side of the ship, helping it to stand out amongst the shadows in the foreground and be the main point of interest in the composition.

I was travelling light that morning, with only my Fujifilm X-T30 camera, 18-55mm standard zoom lens and screw-in 10-stop ND filter and my small Manfrotto Pixi tabletop tripod (see all of my camera gear here). I used the 10-stop filter to smooth the water a little and the small tripod rested on the ground to keep the camera steady.

Shooting fully manual as I usually do in these situations, I dialled in the aperture and shutter speed, keeping the exposure as bright as possible to bring out the details in those dark shadows but at the same time being careful not to blow out the highlights (also called exposing to the right or ETTR), I went ahead and took the shot.

Sunrise is by far and away my favourite time to be in London with my camera but during the summer, it gets light long before my train arrives in the city so it will be a few months before I get to experience it once again and I can’t wait!

Until next week.

Trevor

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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.

Cold and Alone | Weekly Photo #113

One from the archives this week. In fact, this is now the oldest photo I have in my collection of landscape photos. It was taken back in February 2017 and I know that’s only a few years old but I only really started to take photography seriously in 2016 and at that time, my lens was almost exclusively pointed at London’s epic cityscape so I rarely ventured into the natural landscape and when I did, the photos I took back then weren’t particularly good.

Fujifilm X-T10 | XF18-55mm | 36mm | 1/30th Second | f/7.1 | ISO200

In 2017, unless I was heading into the city, I rarely drove far to take photos which is why it comes as no surprise that this photo was taken in a field just 5 minutes from my house. Although I wasn’t big into photographing natural landscapes at the time, I had a bit of a fascination with this local field and still do. It has a few interesting trees, used to grow a variety of different crops and during golden hour and sunset, it provides some great photo opportunities, just like this one here.

One cold February evening back in 2017, I was driving home through the narrow country lanes that run alongside this field and from the bottom of the hill I spotted this tree, standing alone in the landscape at the top and with these high wispy clouds creating an interesting backdrop, I decided to pop home, grab the camera and head back to the field.

Fast forward 20 minutes and I’m back, tripod up and my since retired Fujifilm X-T10 mounted on top. It was a straightforward, almost graphical composition and the strong silhouette of the lone, leafless tree at the top of the hill provided it with a fantastic focal point. With the horizon subtly rising towards the right-hand side, to my eye, keeping the tree on the left-hand side would produce a more balanced image. With the sun already set, the sky was filled with these subtle pastel colours which complemented the greens in the foreground nicely and with everything lined up and settings punched in, I fired the shutter. Being a rather cold February evening, as soon as I had the shot I wanted in the bag, I didn’t hang around. I packed up and made my way back home.

One mistake I did make was focusing on the tree in the background but setting a relatively small aperture. This led to a slightly soft foreground. It’s not so bad that it ruins the photo but it does bug me a bit, even to this day. Nowadays, I would know to close down the aperture a few more stops, check the image on the back of the camera a little more closely before leaving or I might even focus bracket but as I said it was all still a bit new to me and mistakes like this were more common back then.

I’ve visited this field numerous times since. The last time was just the other week and I managed to capture another lone tree but this time with a dark stormy rain cloud over the field which was covered in vibrant yellow rapeseed. I really like the photo and for sure, I’ll share it with you sometime soon.

I’m thankful for having a couple of spots like this close to home meaning I don’t have to drive an hour or two to take a photo and I can react quickly to changes in the weather, visiting time and again to scratch that photographic itch.

Until next week.

Trevor

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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.

Among Giants | Weekly Photo #112

During the winter, while most deciduous trees have shed their leaves, young saplings will often keep hold of theirs throughout the colder months to help protect them against the harsh weather. With most of the woodland’s colour long gone over winter, these often-vibrant young trees add a much-needed splash of colour and help to break up the monotonous wintry woodland tones.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF55-55mm | 74mm | 1/3rd Second | f/8 | ISO200

Back in February, I set off into the cold, wintry woodland with my camera to photograph a clump of tall Scots Pines which I’d scouted on a previous visit. I wanted to capture an arrangement of clean straight tree trunks and Scots Pines, being incredibly tall and straight are perfect for that kind of woodland composition.

Following a woodland path, surrounded by these evergreen giants, a bright orange snippet of colour caught my eye so I went to check it out. I found it to be this young sapling beech tree with the orange colour being the golden autumnal leaves it was still holding on to. The young beech which was only a few feet tall, dwarfed by the pines and it stood out in the grey, foggy woodland providing a clear focal point amongst the tall straight trunks which were giving me the uniform lines I originally came out to photograph. I had my first composition of the day so, I unpacked the camera to take the photo.

Up went the tripod and on to it went my Fujifilm XT2 and 55-200mm telephoto lens and critically for this photo, my circular polariser (CPL) filter. I spoke about using my CPL and the benefits it can bring to my photos in a recent post where I was out photographing the wild garlic and this was another situation where the filter’s ability to cut through the reflective light massively benefited the final image as it gave those oranges an extra bit of punch, helping that young sapling to stand out in the scene.

If you’re a landscape photographer, be it wide vistas, woodland or even urban cityscapes, and don’t have a CPL filter in your bag, I urge you to get one as it can add something special to your photo which cannot be replicated in post.

Cheers,

Trevor

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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.

Golden Contours | Weekly Photo #111

The South Downs which stretches across three counties, from Eastbourne in East Sussex, through West Sussex, all the way to Winchester in Hampshire provides some of the best views in southern England. It’s a relatively flat part of the country so, apart from a stretch of high coastal cliffs in East Sussex, it doesn’t boast what I would call dramatic views, the kind of which you find in other parts of the country such as the Lake District to the north or the Jurassic Coast to the west in Dorset. What it does have is rolling, picturesque hills, charming villages, and ancient woodlands and being right on my doorstep, most of it within an hour’s drive, it’s certainly a place I like to visit with my camera from time to time.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF55-200mm | 67mm | 1/80th Second | f/10 | ISO200

After a great tip and a bit of scouting, back in April this year, a fellow tog called Phil and I took an early morning trip to the South Downs to photograph this stunning landscape. I’d seen a photo of this scene with those fabulous contouring hills on social media and immediately fell in love with it, so I made it my mission to find out where it was taken and get myself down there for a sunrise shoot as soon as I could.

We arrived before sunrise and the scene, albeit still nice to look at, was quite flat so we found our spot and began to set up the camera so we would be ready when that highly anticipated golden light arrived. With it being an unseasonably cold morning, we were thankful we didn’t have to wait too long. As the sun rose above the horizon, it soon became clear that timing was going to be everything as we would need to wait long enough for the light to start to appear in the right places down in the valley but not too long so that there was too much light and those all-important shadows were gone.

Soon enough it came together and that look we were after started to unveil itself in front of us. There is a lot going on here, but I love the way those beautiful rolling hills intertwine as they meet, creating fantastic layers and a cool zigzag pattern through the scene. I also love the windmill over in the distance to the right of the scene. It’s so small but I feel it does an important job to add a point of interest into the composition. Oh, and I love the sheep too!

In terms of composition, I had to be careful that I didn’t include too many of the trees in the small woodland to the right-hand side. Including more would add too much weight on that side, but any less and I would have introduced too much of the empty fields and featureless sky on the left, again creating an imbalance to the composition. I also decided to use the shadow at the very bottom of the frame to my advantage. It may not be immediately obvious, but it’s adding balance by mirroring the similar shape of the large hill in the background. As I said before, there is a lot going on, but I think it all works well together.

After photographing this impressive vista, I zoomed right in with my telephoto lens to capture some abstract photos featuring the impressive lines and shapes on offer and when the best light was gone, the shoot was over and we packed up and headed back to the cars.

Until next week.

Trevor

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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.

More Colour | Weekly Photo #110

Around this time last year, while the dreaded restrictions had been temporarily relaxed here in England, I spent a few hours exploring a very quiet London with my camera. With my small 16mm F2.8 prime lens loaded onto the camera, I was traveling light and with a few hours to kill, I took a wander around the city, camera in hand to see what pictures I could find.

As you can see in the two photos above, it was a clear, sunny day, so I looked for interesting compositions while trying to minimise how much of that bright blue sky was in the frame. By the time I took the second two photos below, the sun had gone down, so the light was much softer, almost pastel-like. Those that follow my work more closely will know that the softer, less contrasty scenes like these two below are right up my street.

As I arrived back at More London, I noticed how the lights at the tip of the Shard were a pale blue colour and it was then that I ended up taking my favourite photo of the day I named “Beacon” which I have already shared in my Weekly Photos series here.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF16mm F2.8 | 16mm | 0.6 Seconds | f/9 | ISO200

After taking the photos close by the river, I decided to call it a night but as I was heading through More London Estate, towards the station, I once again found myself alone, staring up at this view of The Shard, flanked by the buildings that towered above me. I’ve seen this framed view of The Shard a thousand times before so it wasn’t that which caught my attention so much, it was the colours in the scene that held my attention long enough to get my camera back out of the bag to see if my 16mm prime lens could get the entire scene in the frame. After a quick check, I was just about in luck.

As I composed the image, I placed the Shard in the middle of the frame allowing all of those fantastic converging lines to surround it and lead the eye in and up towards the bright blue symbol of recognition of the brave people that continue to work so hard to help us through these tougher times. Playing close attention to the exposure, making sure I didn’t blow out the highlights and along with those vivid colours, I took the shot.

Having to point my camera upwards resulted in quite a lot of distortion to the vertical lines on the left and right which I needed to correct when back in Lightroom which pushed the tip of the Shard a bit too close to the top of the frame for my liking. Including a little less foreground and a little more sky or even stepping back 20-30 feet may have given me a little more room to play with but as they say, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Trevor

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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.

Starry Day | Weekly Photo #109

Using a tripod is fundamental to the way I approach and take my photos. Tripods help me achieve the long exposures I take and they slow me down while out in the field, allowing me to frame and adjust the shot with ease but it doesn’t mean there aren’t any downsides. For instance, I have to be mindful that while out shooting landscapes, using a tripod can sometimes root me to one spot for too long, leading me to miss potential compositions I would have seen if I was to wander around a bit more. One way I try to mitigate this is to leave the tripod in the bag until I’ve properly scouted the area, making notes of the potential shots on offer to return to later. Another way is to take a second camera with me. I do this when the hike isn’t so long and the weight of my camera bag isn’t so critical. That way, I can leave my main camera on the tripod, maybe taking a long exposure, while I wander around with the second camera finding more unique compositions or dynamic angles which is exactly how I ended up taking this photo of Beachy Head lighthouse in East Sussex.

Fujifilm X-T30 | XF10-24mm | 10mm | 1/240th Second | f/4 | ISO400

It was a lovely evening along England’s south coast, the light was soft and had a nice look to it, so, with my main Fujifilm XT2 camera sitting on the tripod waiting for the best light to take this image (which I previously shared here: Beachy Head Lighthouse), I went for a short stroll with my Fujifilm X-T30 and 10-24mm lens to see what other compositions were on offer. What I like about being free from the tripod is that not only can I move around the scene more quickly, I can also drop down to ground level with ease, and by using the swivel screen on my camera, I can capture some unique angles I might never have seen if I was using a tripod and that’s how I found this composition here.

I was hunting for a pool of water to create a nice reflection of the lighthouse and with the wide-angle lens on, it didn’t have to be huge because I knew that if I was to get low to the ground, close to the edge of the water, the focal length would emphasise the foreground, making it appear bigger and after a few minutes of searching, I found this spot you can see here.

At first, it was all about finding a clean reflection, so I held the camera as close to the water as I could, placed the lighthouse on the right-hand third, leaving the rocks on the left to add a little balance to the composition. I took the shot and checked the back of the camera and all looked good. The light was subtle, highlighting the lighthouse nicely and the all-important reflections in the foreground looked really good.

It was only when I got the photo home and into Lightroom, I started to look at the foreground more closely and I just couldn’t shake how the details in the dark water reminded me of a starry night sky. It was almost as if the top half of the photo was taken during the day and the bottom half was taken at night. I love the contrast, and even tried flipping the photo upside down to see how it looked and it kind of worked that way up too!

I appreciate that not everyone will have a second camera to take out with them or would want the extra weight in their bag but nearly everyone has a camera on their phone which can be used in a similar way. Leaving the main camera on the tripod, take a wander around with your smartphone, lining up compositions and if you spot a winner, grab the main camera and take the photo. You never know, by taking this approach, you might just come away with the next addition to your portfolio.

Have a great week.

Trevor

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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.

Morning Mist | Weekly Photo #108

Dawn really is my favourite time of the day to be out with my camera. Whether I’m standing on the bank of the River Thames photographing the cityscape while the rest of London still sleeps or amongst the trees in my local woodland listening to the wildlife go about their morning business, just being there, in the moment makes those early morning alarms worthwhile.

That being said, getting up for sunrise at this time of year, when the days are at their longest and sunrise is at silly-o’clock takes every last bit of my will-power because when that alarm sounds at 3:30 am, I could just ignore it and stay in bed (and sometimes I do). But the mornings when I do get up and head out into the dark, camera in tow are the mornings where I’ve convinced myself that this might be the day, I get the conditions I long for. Which, just happened to be the case just the other week during a fantastic misty summer’s morning in the local forest.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 18mm | 1/5th Second | f/8 | ISO250

All the signs pointed that I was in for some foggy conditions as I set my alarm for the following morning. After a few days of heavy rain, the humidity was up in the 90s, the dew point matched the temperature and only a light wind was expected. Sure, weather can be unpredictable and I’d been here before, anticipating some fantastic conditions for woodland photography, only to wake up to clear or uninspiring light. But every now and then, it all comes together and that was the case on this particular morning. So, off I went into the pre-dawn darkness to my local forest.

It was still dark as I arrived, but being familiar with the forest pays dividends on days like this as to save a bit of time, I made my way straight to a spot I’d previously scouted so when the light was good enough, I was already on location with the camera on the tripod, ready to take the picture.

After arriving and setting up my camera, I stopped and waited for the light levels to increase. After I’d finished messing with the gear, it all fell silent around me and only then did the forest come to life. I noticed the trees gently rustling in the wind, twigs falling to the floor next to me while the squirrels jumped from tree to tree and most of all, the sound of the birds waking up with their song.

I recorded the sound I could hear on my phone which you can play below. It’s by no means a professional job and I don’t have a microphone but it sounds ok to me. Whatever you’re doing, find a quiet place, press play and close your eyes for 60 seconds and just listen.

Beautiful, right? I find it so relaxing and it transports me back to the exact moment I was standing there taking it all in After the light levels increased, I took the photo and went on my way. I’ll share that one in the coming weeks.

With the conditions as good as they were, I had to be careful not to rush around like a headless chicken, trying to cram as many compositions in as possible. I had to remind myself to take it slow and seek out the very best compositions on offer. That being said, I had in my mind a scene I wanted to photograph, so I headed to the part of the forest mostly likely to deliver and after hunting for a good 45 minutes or more, I finally found what I was looking for.

I love the look of birch trees in the early summer months, surrounded by fresh green foliage complemented by these misty conditions. I’ve seen plenty of similar-looking photos from some of the woodland photographers I follow and have always wanted to photograph something similar, captured and processed in my own style. After stumbling on this arrangement of trees, I immediately knew there was a picture to be had here.

Out came my camera so I could move around, using the viewfinder to frame the best composition. I wanted the birch in the foreground to be the main focal point, allowing the trees in the background to play a supporting role and add some depth into the image. It was important to me that the colours of the rhododendrons were included on each side to break up the greens a little and add a subtle splash of colour, emphasising the late spring/early summer look I was after.

I find that using a circular polarizer filter in foggy conditions can sometimes lead to a flatter, lifeless photo so I chose not to use one here and instead allow what light there was to reflect from the plants and with my camera now on the tripod and the camera settings dialled in (18mm, f/8, 1/5th sec, ISO250) I took this shot.

Until next week.

Trevor

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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.

Garlic Hill | Weekly Photo #107

With regards to my photography, it’s been a productive couple of weeks. I’ve managed a few trips into London and although it turned out to be rather cloudy (typical!), it still felt great to be up there and I even managed to get the filters out to take some long exposure images around More London and St Katherine Docks. A bit more local to me, I made a few early morning trips into the forest and on my last visit, I was greeted with some pretty special foggy conditions which along with the vivid greens and late spring colours, transformed the look of the woodland and I spent a fantastic few hours taking advantage of the conditions and seeking out various compositions.

Oh, and I broke my 55-200mm telephoto lens, so I’ve had to organise a repair on that too!

Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 14mm | 1/30th Second | f/8 | ISO400

I found this woodland, just a few minutes from my home earlier this year. It sits on top of the hill along the north downs in Surrey and offers a variety of different trees and woodland scenes to photograph and as a bonus, it’s situated over 200ft up which means when the clouds are low, it often gets foggy up there which is great for woodland photography. Unfortunately, on this particular day, as I headed out to photograph the wild garlic there was no fog to be seen. You win some, you lose some!

While exploring the woodland a few weeks before, I spotted a small area, no more than 10m by 10m along a steep bank that was covered in recently sprouted wild garlic leaves so I made a mental note to return when the garlic was due to flower and got on my merry way. Fast forward three or four weeks and I’m on my hands and knees, climbing the same steep bank as I attempted to photograph these strong-smelling wildflowers. Leading up to this day, there had been a lot of rain and not only was the bank extremely steep, it was also incredibly slippery. If that wasn’t bad enough, I also had to be extremely careful not to flatten the garlic as I climbed but with hands and knees covered in mud, I eventually made it up and found my spot.

I wanted to get close and wide for this photo as it wasn’t a particularly big area of garlic and I wanted to emphasise the flowers in the foreground, making them appear more prominent in the frame but this presented a problem with depth of field. Being so close to the foreground, there was no way I was going to have the depth of field I needed for acceptable sharpness from front to back, so I decided to focus stack the shot. So, after manually dialling in my exposure, I went about taking three or four photos, focusing on key areas of the scene to make sure, when I got back to the computer to blend them together, the wild garlic would be sharp across the entire scene.

This was my first attempt at scouting and photographing wild garlic and overall, I’m quite happy with the final photo. I would have preferred a slightly cleaner composition, particularly on the right-hand side where the trees overlap and a little mist in the air would have been a nice touch too. The good thing so close to this woodland is that I visit as often as I like to seek out new compositions in different conditions.

Until next week.

Trevor

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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.

Vivid Vistas | Weekly Photo #106

I have been taking cityscape photos of London for many years now and in that time, the night time view of the city from the Thames has been transformed by replacing the outdated orange street lights with new, modern light installations. Gone are the monotonous night time views of London, replaced with vibrant urban vistas which are more environmentally friendly to boot. Having photographed so many of these locations over the last 15 years or so, I decided to put together a list of what I consider my top ten night photography spots in London. Just like my other “top location” posts previously published, I also included some useful information to help plan a shoot such as the best time to go and if tripods can be used. Click here to read the blog, alternatively select the image below.

Towards the back end of last year, I took an early train into London with my camera and was greeted with some awesome foggy conditions. I spent a fantastic couple of hours walking around the city and taking photos along the way. I shared some of them in another blog post cunningly titled Photographing London in the Fog.

When the fog had finally lifted, I headed into the office for my day job but instead of heading home at the end of the day, I decided to walk along the River Thames to take a few nightscape photos in Westminster. With the modern lights adding colour to the city and with a relatively calm river providing some cracking reflections, I decided to get the camera out and capture some of the vivid riverside vistas on offer.

I took a number of photos as I wandered west, along the north side of the river, from Blackfriars to Westminster Bridge. The bend in the river near Waterloo Bridge provides the perfect vantage point to photograph the views looking both east towards the Shard and west towards the London Eye, so I spent a few minutes photographing in each direction before continuing along the river.

The next stop was directly in front of the London Eye. This one was a little trickier as not only did I have to carefully compose to avoid the boats and piers in the river, I also had the moon moving left to right directly behind it. My plan was to take two exposures, one for the scene and the other for the moon but however hard I tried, I could not get the moon to look right, and with the cloud constantly moving in front of it, there was no way I would be able to blend another exposure in seamlessly without it looking odd. It may well be a lack of Photoshop skills but I would much rather use the photo as is, rather than present a messy, badly blended version. It still looks ok, but it would be amazing with a sharp, well-exposed moon to the left of the London Eye. One for another day I suppose.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 11mm | 13 Seconds | f/16 | ISO200

My last stop was Westminster Bridge. It was pretty busy as usual on there so I had no option but to close the tripod right down and precariously rest it on a small area of the bridge wall which was just about big enough for a retracted tripod. I made my way to the south side of the bridge and stopped at the exact spot where the vertical lines of the London Eye were aligned.

In keeping with the theme to include the lights reflecting in the water, I placed the horizon in the centre of the frame so both the London Eye and its reflection were mirroring each other. I still had my wide-angle 10-24mm lens on the camera and decided to stick with it as I liked how it pushed the London Eye deeper into the scene, providing lots of space to breathe around it. The street lights and their reflections along the south bank were creating a nice line to lead the eye into the shot and this was also being accentuated by the effect the wide lens was having. So, once I had the composition lined up exactly how I wanted, I dialled in the settings and took the photo.

Although the city lights along the Thames are a lot better now, much of the city still has the warm coloured street lights and London continues to emit an orange ambient glow which I am not a fan of in my images. So, back in post, I cooled down the white balance to help eliminate that and then went to work on the colours and tones until I had the photo exactly how I wanted.

I’m not really into astrophotography so when out in the natural landscape, photography stops for me when the sun goes down which is far from the case in London, so, I look forward to taking more urban nightscapes in the city later this year.

Until next time.

Trevor

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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.

Lush Greens | Weekly Photo #105

This Spring, I had two objectives with my woodland photography. Firstly, to scout some unique spots to photograph the beautiful bluebells and secondly, to find a location in my local woodland to photograph wild garlic. Albeit later than usual, first to appear was the bluebells, which I was fortunate to photograph here and here. Shortly after, the wild garlic started to bloom, so I got to work on scouting out where I could photograph these aromatic wildflowers.

I found the search for wild garlic much more difficult than the search for bluebell locations but my perseverance paid off as I eventually stumbled on this location by searching Flickr and using the accompanying metadata along with some detective work on google maps to hone in on this exact spot in the south of England on the Surrey/Sussex border.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 10mm | 0.5 Seconds | f/9 | ISO200

The first thing that struck me when I arrived was just how green everything was. Along with the fresh new leaves on the trees, the lush, vibrant greens of the wild garlic leaves which carpeted the woodland floor was something to behold and it was my job to find an interesting composition amongst it all. I started with a few photos using the pathway and bridge that crosses this small brook as compositional interest before deciding to get my feet wet and take this photo looking directly down the brook, flanked by the fresh wild garlic flowers. After carefully descending the slippery bank I went about setting up the camera and composing the shot.

If you’re looking for examples of how a circular polarising filter (CPL) can help your woodland photography, then look no further than this picture here. A CPL filter works by controlling or removing reflections from shiny or wet surfaces, because when light hits those surfaces, they create glare that increases highlights, reduces colour and detail. By using a CPL filter as I did here, it has removed most of the reflections in the water and the wet leaves, which is why you can see the details under the water so well and is also why the green leaves look so lush. It’s commonly agreed by the photography community that the effect a CPL has on an image is the only one that can’t be replicated in post, so it’s are a worthy addition to any landscape photographer’s bag.

With the foreground so close to the lens, getting sharpness front to back would be tricky in a single shot so I decided to focus bracket the photo so, starting from the closest leaves to the camera, I worked from front to back refocusing and in between breaths of wind, capturing the next frame until I had 4 or 5 to blend together later in Photoshop to create a single, sharp image.

Although the scene could do with a few more flowers on the right-hand side to balance things up and boy would this place look amazing in misty conditions, overall, I’m extremely happy with this first attempt to photograph the wild garlic and really pleased I found this local sport which I can return to in the future.

Until next week.

Trevor

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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.

Low Tide | Weekly Photo #104

Once or twice a year, I take a visit down to England’s south coast and try to capture a new photo of the derelict remains of Brighton’s West Pier. There’s something about what’s left of this once grand Victorian structure that captivates me, drawing me back to photograph its skeletal frame, stripped of the ornate skin it once wore proudly.

How did the pier end up in this sorry state? After falling into disrepair, eventually closing to the public in the 1970s and suffering further damage during the storm of ‘87, it was eventually sold to the West Pier Trust who managed to secure funding for its restoration. In 2002, before the restoration could begin, the pier suffered further storm damage followed by two devastating fires in 2003, leading to the funding being withdrawn in 2004. Since this time, the structure is slowly being reclaimed by the sea.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 10mm | 105 Seconds | f/9 | ISO200

When you're finished here, why not pop by and check out some of the other photos I took of the West Pier.

• Remnant Tranquillity

• Skeletal Remains

• The West Pier

Last September, I decided to head down to the coast once again to photograph the West Pier at sunset. I prefer to photograph the structure at low tide as I can get a little closer and I like the way the fallen metal fragments look, scattered around the base of the pier. So, when planning the shoot, I was sure to check the tide times as well as the weather and when both were aligned, off I went to photograph the pier.

Every now and then the tide is so low that you can right out to the pier which just happened to be the case on this particular evening. When I arrived to take the shot, the beach was full of people enjoying the low tide and close access to the pier. As I wandered around looking for the best spot to take the picture, it became clear to me that if I was going to get a clean photo, free of distractions, I needed to get as close as I could to the pier and that meant only one thing…. wet feet!

After venturing further out towards the pier, avoiding the deeper pools of water, I found my spot which provided a central composition of the structure now towering above me. Up went my tripod, mounted with my Fujifilm XT2 and given how close I needed to be to the pier, I was going to need the widest focal length I had, so on went the wide-angle 10-24mm lens. It was always my intention to take a long exposure photo so when set up and composed, I mounted my 10-stop ND filter which would help me smooth out the shallow water and any clouds in the sky, removing any distractions, making the subject appear more prominent in the scene.

Ready to take the shot, I just had one more thing left to do and that was to wait for the scene to be clear enough of people to get the clean shot. With a 105 second exposure, as long as people kept moving through the frame, they would be rendered invisible but the minute they stopped, the image was ruined, so after four or five failed attempts, I managed to grab an image just as the best light was beginning to fade away.

This is probably my favourite photo of the West Pier I’ve taken to date. I love the wispy details of the sand under the water, complemented by similar shapes created by the clouds in the sky. The sunset colours are subtle and not too overpowering, and the smooth, distraction-free water really helps the pier stand out in the composition.

The West Pier has actually been on quite a journey, from its golden age in the early 20th century, storms, fires to finally what little remains there today, yet it still stands. It’s hard not to be inspired by its refusal to crumble into the sea as I stand there, feet submerged, taking photos of it.

Until next week.

Trevor

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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.

Showtime | Weekly Photo #103

This is the time of year when the ancient forests of Blighty come alive, waking from their wintry sleep as they put on a fantastic show of vibrant colour, inspiring positivity and optimism that brighter days are ahead. Photography or not, I’ve always enjoyed the woodland at this time of year and I’ve had a blast scouting, exploring and finally being able to photograph it.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF55-200mm | 67mm | 1/13th Second | f/9 | ISO200

From the moment I started thinking about photographing the woodland this spring, I had this popular bluebell scene in mind and although similar-looking photos have taken over my Instagram feed lately, I wanted to try to take my own version, captured and edited in my own style. Why you might ask, do I want to take a photo that’s been taken a million times before? Well, I don’t subscribe to the notion that we landscape photographers should avoid popular subjects or compositions as with so many variables such as light, weather, time of day, and even the effect a pandemic can have on certain locations, no two photographs are ever identical. I think that unless a photographer is working to brief, they are free to explore creativity in their own, unique way, and for many, including me, getting those hero shots are part of that process.

After a bit of research and a lot of legwork, I finally found this beautiful spot in West Sussex where I could take the photo I had planned. It’s a large forest, well known for putting on a show during spring with carpets of bluebells throughout the woodland but when presented with such a wide area to search and with a very specific look I wanted to achieve, it inevitably took some time to find the exact spot. I ended up making two separate 3-hour round trips and spending a good 6-7 hours exploring the woodland before I found the best spot.

I spent some time working the scene. By that, I mean I walked around the forest, studying it, finding the best area of bluebells, the best arrangement of trees, while trying to minimise the amount of bright, distracting light that was piercing through the canopy. After a few minutes, this is the composition I decided on.

It was this tree in the foreground with those green leaves on the trunk that initially caught my eye but as I started to compose, I started to notice other things I like, such as those vibrant greens up in the canopy and the way the floor isn’t just one solid carpet of purple, but rather these swathes of colour with purples, whites and greens spread right across the forest floor. It really was a beautiful scene to observe.

I ended up focus stacking the first few layers of trees to make sure they were nice and sharp and used a circular polarizer filter on the end of my lens to take some of the glare off the leaves and with my settings dialled in, I took the shot.

Some misty conditions would have been the icing on the cake for a woodland scene like this, but I guess you can’t have everything and there’s always next time, but overall, I’m really pleased with the photo I took.

Trevor

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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.

Moving On | Weekly Photo #102

This is a bit of a first on my weekly photo series. After posting over 100 photos, this is the first time I’ve posted one that isn’t in the 3:2 aspect ratio. 3:2 is the native ratio on my Fujifilm camera and although I do crop my images, I’ve held off posting wider photos on this blog as anything wider than 3:2 doesn’t come across well on mobile devices. That’s left me a bit frustrated as I have lots of photos in either 2:1 or even 3:1 panoramic format which I would love to share with you too, so, that’s what I’ve decided I’m going to do from now on.

After looking through my website analytics, there’s a 50:50 split between those that read my blog on a mobile device and those that read it on a desktop. yes, I know mobile is the future but still, I’m really pleased about that as for the panoramic photos like this, the wider screen on a desktop or laptop is by far the best way to view my pictures regardless of the size. I might have to get a bit more creative to show the wider format photos on the likes of Instagram, but there are plenty of techniques I can use to do that.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 15mm | 120 Seconds | f/9 | ISO200

The title of this photo has a kind of double meaning as not only did I decided to move on, away from just posting the same aspect ratio photos but it’s also about one of the frustrating sides of landscape photography in London and how we photographers can be seen as a nuisance or even a threat to other people.

I’ve wanted to take a long exposure photo like this of the O2 Arena (formerly known as the Millennium Dome) for some time now and a few weeks ago, back in late March this year I found myself making a rare trip to the office in London, so I decided to take my photography gear and try to get this shot after I had finished my work. I’d done some research into where to go to get this picture of the Greenwich peninsular from the north side of the River Thames but to get the very best angle, I still needed to explore on foot, so after leaving the train station near Canary Wharf, I walked east along the river, keeping an eye on the view on the other side as it unfolded.

At around 6PM, I found my spot. It was on a public walkway, the Thames Path in fact, in front of some residential houses and provided a perfectly symmetrical view of the arena. I set up my tripod and mounted my camera, pointing it out across the river in anticipation and hope for some nice light as the sun continued to set. Here's a snapshot I took of the view with my iPhone as I was setting up.

After 20-25 minutes, I was approached by a security guard who politely asked me to pack up and move on as I wasn’t allowed to take photographs from that spot as I was on private land. I made a case that I was out of the way, doing no harm and there were many other people who didn’t live there using the space, but he said one of the residences was concerned I had been there too long and was up to no good so had asked for me to be moved on. He was polite enough and to his credit, he understood that I wasn’t a threat and my camera was pointing away from the buildings, but he had little choice but to do as requested by the resident. I’m used to being asked to put my tripod away in London as much of the Thames Path is private land with public access, but I’ve never been asked to actually pack up and leave.

I could have made a scene and argued my case but what would that have achieved? The guard wasn’t deliberately trying to make my life difficult and the fact remained that I was on private land and with time running out before the sun was going to set, arguing with him would have been a waste of time and I would have likely missed my opportunity to find another spot to get a photo. I reluctantly packed my camera gear away and made my way along the river to the spot I took this week’s photo from.

So, with the ideal composition off the table, I found the next best location around 5 minutes along the river. Up went the tripod once more and I mounted my Fujifilm XT2 and wide-angle 10-24mm lens. I wanted to include the entire peninsular with the river heading off either side to give the photo a balanced composition but to get that wide, I had to include plenty of water in the foreground which I knew I would need to crop away later.

With the sun now beginning to set and with these nice, pastel colours starting to appear in the sky, I mounted my Kase magnetic ND filters on the end of my lens and pressed the shutter. As with all of my long exposure photos, I follow a straightforward process from manually focusing to calculating my exposure and rather than explaining that in too much detail in this post, you can find all of the information in my eBook here.

To get the water as smooth as possible, I ended up stacking my 10-stop and 3-stop ND filters onto the end of my lens which resulted in this 2-minute exposure. Although there weren’t many clouds, thankfully, those that were there were moving away from me and the 2-minute exposure was enough to stretch them out, creating some nice interest in the sky.

Along with some tonal adjustments and spot removal in Lightroom, I also cropped the image to a 2:1 panoramic aspect ratio which removed some of the empty space which was adding very little to the lower third of the frame.

I’m really pleased that regardless of not being able to take the photo from my preferred location, I still walked away with something that evening.

Trevor

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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.

Awakening | Weekly Photo #101

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been eagerly scouting and photographing nearby woodlands as they begin to wake from their wintry sleep, sprouting with new life and vibrant colours. I only started to photograph the woodland in March last year but just days into this new pursuit, we were locked down, stuck at home for almost the entire spring season. So, with restrictions from the most recent lockdown loosened in March this year, I wasn’t going to miss out on photographing the woodland in spring for a second year. I spent as much time as I could researching potential areas and once allowed, headed out to explore them so I could be ready to photograph them once the awakening had started.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 41mm | 0.5 Seconds | f/8 | ISO200

While researching potential locations, I came across this small woodland just 15 minutes’ drive from home. I initially discovered it on the Surrey Wildlife Trust website. The Wildlife Trust do important work here in the UK to protect the local wildlife through active engagement and education and websites like theirs are a great source of knowledge to find areas with particular types of wildlife when scouting photography locations.

When I first scouted the woodland back in early March, the trees were still bare but all over the ground, I noticed the green leaves of bluebells starting to sprout. Bluebells have a particularly thick, grass-like leaf and with the woodland floor smothered in them like a vibrant green carpet, I knew I had a great location close to home where I could keep coming back to during spring. When I took this photo, the Bluebells were still around a week from being at their peak but as I wandered amongst the trees, I spotted this picturesque scene with bluebells in the foreground, with a small, dried-up brook in the mid-ground that subtly leads the eye towards the background and those new, vibrant leaves backlit by the morning sun.

Thankfully, I could get to the spot where I took this picture without disturbing a single Bluebell as I know how fragile these flowers can be. The UK woodlands is home to around 50% of the global population of Bluebells and like many woodland flowers, if you tread on them, they may not grow back again next year which is why they are a protected species under the Wildlife and Countryside Act. They really are a national treasure.

I carefully placed my tripod on the ground, avoiding any flowers and mounted my Fujifilm XT2 and 18-55mm lens on top. To give the colours a slight boost and to take a small amount of the glare off the leaves, I mounted my circular polariser filter onto the end of the lens and with the settings dialled in, I manually focused and took the shot.

Overall, I’m happy with the final image, although I think it would be stronger and a little less busy without the trees on the far left and bottom right but this is woodland photography and although it’s part of the challenge to create a visually pleasing photo, you often have to embrace the chaos nature presents to you. I’ve quickly learned that if you strive for a perfect composition while photographing the woodland, you will quickly be disappointed.

Until next week.

Trevor

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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.

My Top 10 Night Photography Spots in London

I have been taking cityscape photos of London for many years now and in that time, the view of the city at night has been transformed by replacing the outdated orange street lights with new, modern light installations, turning these once monotonous views of London into vibrant urban vistas. Having photographed so many of these iconic scenes myself, I’ve decided to share a few of what I consider my favourite night photography spots in London.

Photographing London at Night

In this article, I will be taking you on a journey along the River Thames from west to east as we visit 10 of my top spots to capture photographs of London at night which includes some useful information such as the closest stations and if the locations are tripod friendly or not.

When you have finished reading this article, why not check out some of my other “Photographing London” posts.

My Top 10 Photography Spots in London

My top 5 free rooftop locations to photograph London

My 10 top tips for photographing London

My Top 5 Long Exposure Locations in London

#1 The London Eye from Westminster Bridge

Starting our journey along the River Thames, the first night photography spot on my list is the view of the London Eye taken from Westminster Bridge. With the side-on view of County Hall and the London Eye, it’s a great spot to capture the bright colours that light up the South Bank. Getting a balanced composition can be a bit tricky so for this photo I walked to the far side of the Bridge which allowed me to include the riverboat pier in the bottom left, adding some visual weight into the frame. Read more about this photo in my Weekly Photo series here: Colour Wheel.

When is the best time to photograph this spot?

To both avoid the masses of people that congregate on Westminster Bridge in the evening and to avoid getting up super early, I recommend photographing this view before sunrise during the winter months. With the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and The London Eye all situated here, this area is a magnet for tourists so finding the ideal spot and having enough space to set up a tripod is difficult at night but if you visit before sunrise in the winter, you will have to wrap up warm but you can arrive at a reasonable 7am and capture this night time photo of London with relative ease.

Can I use a tripod?

Yes, you can. There are no rules that prevent the use of tripods but as the location can get very busy during the day and into the evenings, you should choose your spot carefully to avoid it being bumped into by other people. You will have far more space to set up a tripod if you visit before sunrise as I did in the photo above.

How do you find the location?

The closest underground stations are Westminster (Jubilee Line) and Lambeth North (Bakerloo Line) and from there head towards Westminster Bridge.

#2 Westminster from the Golden Jubilee Bridge

Next up, we have the fantastic view from the Hungerford Bridge and Golden Jubilee Bridges where you can take this night photo of the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament

When is the best time to photograph this spot?

There’s no need for an early alarm for this shot as I’ve photographed from this bridge many times and never has it got too busy to set up my tripod so getting here after dark any time of the year is fine. If you want to capture a long exposure with the London Eye spinning, make sure you look up the opening times to make sure it’s still running at the time you want to photograph.

Can I use a tripod?

Yes, you can. There is no rule to prevent the use of tripods but you will need to find a spot in between the poles that form part of the bridge’s structure and as always, try to keep it out of the way of other people to avoid it being bumped about.

How do you find the location?

The closest underground stations are Embankment (Circle and District Lines) and Waterloo (Jubilee Line) and from there head towards the south-western side of the Golden Jubilee bridge. This view can be found close to the South Bank of the river.

#3 The City of London from the Thames South Bank

This is a classic view of London from the South Bank of the River Thames and a fantastic spot to photograph London at night. The ornate street lamps light the path through the frame leading to a backdrop of the vibrant colours of Blackfriars Bridge, the City of London and the famous dome of St Paul’s Cathedral. I wrote more about the time I took this photo in my photoblog here: South Bank.

When is the best time to photograph this spot?

I took this photo in January and with the trees free of leaves, more of the scene opens up revealing more of the lights along the path and the city in the background which would be obscured by the trees in the warmer months. I took this photo in the evening and if you have some patience and a bit of luck, you may get a gap in the foot traffic enabling you to take a photo without any people along the path but if you’re an early riser, a pre-sunrise shoot without as many people is also a good option.

Can I use a tripod?

Strictly speaking, tripods are not allowed along this stretch of the South Bank but as it’s a short walk away from the really busy areas around the London Eye, you can normally get away with it without anyone bothering you. You do, however, need to keep out of the way here so as I did in the photo above, you can tuck yourself in, close to the trees which still leaves plenty of room for people to pass by.

How do you find the location?

This spot is on the south side of the Thames in between Waterloo Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge. The nearest Underground stop is Waterloo Station on the Jubilee Line but what I like to do is walk along the South Bank from Westminster which takes around 10 minutes. Once you can see the dome from St Paul’s Cathedral, Blackfriars Bridge and some of the buildings in the city, you are at the right place.

#4 St Paul’s Cathedral and the Millennium Bridge

Number 4 on my Top 10 Night Photography Spots in London is The Millennium Bridge. With the recently upgraded lights and sleek, modern lines there are many different compositions of London to photograph. I particularly like this symmetrical view of the bridge which leads the eye towards the recognisable dome of St Paul’s Cathedral and if you catch the clouds moving in the right direction, the long exposure needed at night will help them mirror the direction of the bridge and make your final image even stronger.

When is the best time to photograph this spot?

To get this symmetrical composition of the Millennium Bridge, the fewer people crossing the bridge the better as even with a long night time exposure, you will still end up with ghostly figures crossing the bridge if it’s too busy so I recommend late at night, after rush hour or early in the morning before people start heading off to work.

If you can’t get to the bridge at these times, don’t worry as there is a photo to be had here day or night from on or underneath the bridge. It’s a popular spot for photography for good reason.

Can I use a tripod?

You can use a tripod on the Millennium Bridge. There are a couple of central compositions that can be photographed from the south side of the bridge but if you really want a perfectly symmetrical composition, there are only a couple of specific places to photograph from so its best to arrive a little earlier than planned just in case the best spots are taken and you need to think of a plan b.

How do you find the location?

The easiest and closest stations to get to the Millennium Bridge are St Pauls (Central Line) which is just north of the bridge or Blackfriars (District and Circle Lines or National Rail) which requires just a few minute’s walk east along the river.

#5 London from Tate Modern’s viewing platform

The viewing platform is a great spot for taking night photographs of the city from the south side of the River Thames. From here you can get uninterrupted views of the city of London or the dome of St Pauls cathedral (as I did here) and with a wide-angle lens, you can embrace the dominant chimney and the lights down in the turbine room and use the historic structure as your main subject against the bright lights of the city in the background.

When is the best time to photograph this spot?

If you want to take photos of the city from this spot at night, then it’s a much more pleasant experience doing so in the warmer months as you are quite exposed to the elements when up the tower and it can be rather cold but with the sun setting later, you should aim to visit on a Friday or Saturday evening, when the museum is open until 21:30. Otherwise, you can capture a night-scape image during the winter months any day of the week, just wear an extra layer or two!

Can I use a tripod?

No, the museum has a strict rule about the use of tripods. To get a sharp image in low light, you can try to use a tabletop tripod like the Manfrotto PIXI which I carry in my camera bag and balance it on the corner of the railings or on the floor but just be careful as it’s a slightly risky manoeuvre. My advice is to make sure that whatever you do, you keep the camera strap on and around your neck just in case the camera slips.

How do you find the location?

As in location 4 above, you can use St Paul’s or Blackfriars to get to this night photography spot. Tate Modern is located along Thames Bankside on the South of the river, opposite St Pauls. Just use the main entrance to the museum and head to the back where you will find the lifts up to the viewing level.

#6 London Bridge and the Shard from the North Bank

This spot next to London Bridge is quite a new addition to my list as up until recently, the lights on the bridge were a monotone orange colour and along with its uninspiring concrete arches, London Bridge at night was nothing to write home about. It’s all changed now though. The Illuminated River project has turned this dull-looking bridge into a vibrant wall of colour and not to be outdone, the lights on the Shard help it stand out at night, making it a fantastic subject for the bridge to lead the eye towards. To see how I got on taking this shot, take a look at this post: Illuminated River.

When is the best time to photograph this spot?

If vibrant colour is what you want, then December is by far the best month to photograph this view of London at night. During the month of December, The Shard puts on its own multicoloured light show which compliments the lights on London Bridge nicely. Just remember to wrap up warm and bring a wide-angle lens to fit it all in the frame.

Can I use a tripod?

Yes, you can use a tripod. The river wall is very thick at this spot so what I tend to do is close my tripod right down and put it on the wall, close to the edge to avoid including it in the shot. Just be extra careful the camera doesn’t fall off.

How do you find the location?

To get to this spot, the closest train stations are Monument/Cannon Street (Circle and District lines) or across the river at London Bridge (Northern Jubilee and National Rail lines). You then need to make your way to the north bank of the Thames and the spot is down by the waterside just a minute’s walk west along the river.

#7 The architecture at More London

Day or night, More London Estate is one of my favourite places to photograph London. This spot boasts some fantastic cityscape photo opportunities from the modern architecture of The Shard, to the classic London icons such as Tower Bridge and it’s no different at night. This is one of my top night photography spots for good reason as the cool, modern lights really pop at night and with all of this ambient light to work with, it’s a fantastic location for some night photography.

When is the best time to photograph this spot?

If you are only pointing your camera across the river or if you don’t mind lots of people in your landscape photos, then visit in the evening, any time of the year but if you want to photograph this fantastic architecture without any people causing blurry ghostly figures in the shot, then before sunrise is your best option. Although you still get people walking through, the foot traffic is far less and there are plenty of gaps to take a shot.

Can I use a tripod?

Strictly speaking, you can’t use tripods here but over the last few years, I am being bothered less and less by the wardens. I’ve learned to stay out of the way and be discrete and they seem to recognise that and leave me to it but if you visit, be prepared to be asked to put the tripod away.

How do you find the location?

London Bridge with access to the Northern, Jubilee and National Rail lines is easily the most convenient place to head to when visiting More London Estate. If coming from the north of the river, you can travel to Tower Hill on the Circle and District line and cross the river via Tower Bridge.

#8 Tower Bridge from the Thames North Bank

Number 8 in my top 10 night photography spots in London is this classic view of Tower Bridge taken from the north bank of the River Thames. Photographing this famous bascule bridge from in front of the Tower of London allows you to include these ornate street lamps and the cobbled street giving it an almost timeless look.

When is the best time to photograph this spot?

This is a gated area and opens around 7am and closes at 9pm every day so as it’s still light at these times in the middle of summer, I recommend visiting this spot between November and January for a pre-sunrise shoot or anytime between August and April for a post-sunset shoot.

Can I use a tripod?

Surprisingly so, yes. Even though this is private property, it seems the management team at the Tower of London are happy to allow tripods even though it can get very busy during the day which is quite refreshing, to say the least.

How do you find the location?

Tower Hill is the nearest tube station located on the other side of the castle. otherwise, on the south of the river, London Bridge Station is the closest. Head to the north side of the river, directly in front of the Tower of London and you will see the spot along the river.

#9 The Shard and City Hall from Tower Bridge

Fast becoming one of the most iconic views in London this cityscape view encompasses More London, City Hall, The Shard, HMS Belfast and in the background, London Bridge. It’s a rather modern looking view of the city with lots of glass and modern lights which looks fantastic when all lit up at night and it’s for that very reason, this view is on my top 10 night photography spots in London.

When is the best time to photograph this spot?

If you’re a bit of peace and quiet while photographing this view, then visit before sunrise as you won’t be battling the herds of people crossing Tower Bridge but if you are lucky enough to be in London at Christmas in December, then visit after dark as although it will be busy, The Shard puts on a bit of a light show so you can photograph it with various vibrant colours on top making it worth the trouble.

Can I use a tripod?

Yes, you can. Whether you take the photo from Tower Bridge or in front of the Tower of London, tripods are allowed. Just be careful as this area gets very busy in the evening and I would advise anyone to tuck themselves out of the way as much as possible to avoid the tripod legs tripping someone up or being kicked by a passer-by.

How do you find the location?

To get here, you can use London Bridge Station on the south of the river or Tower Hill on the north of the river. Compositionally, it can be tricky to capture this view and whereas a lot of people will try to photograph the scene from directly opposite, in front of the Tower of London, I prefer to capture this view from the north end of Tower Bridge as I prefer a slightly higher vantage point looking further down the Thames and with the Shard directly the middle, the image looks a little more balanced in my opinion.

10 Tower Bridge from St Katherine Docks

The last but not least location to take night photos in London is this spot just along the river from Tower Bridge on the other side of St Katherine Docks Marina. From this vantage point, you get to enjoy this awesome view of Tower Bridge with the Shard right behind it.

When is the best time to photograph this spot?

This is a gated area and I’ve tried to access it for a sunrise shoot and found the gates locked, so, I recommend visiting in the evening to take a night photo of this view. It’s never been particularly busy when I’ve visited so I can recommend taking a late stroll to this spot in the summer and enjoying a nice, warm sunset before taking the night shot.

Can I use a tripod?

Yes, I’ve been here many times and not once have I been bothered by the site wardens. As I’ve said multiple times before, just stay out of the way and avoid making a nuisance of yourself and based on my experience, you should be fine.

How do you find the location?

The closest tube stations are either London Bridge or Tower Hill. This spot is on the north bank of the Thames. To get here, you need to drop below Tower Bridge and make your way east along the river to St Katherine Docks and once passed, walk along St Katherine’s Way until you get to Tower Bridge Wharf Building where you need to turn left and walk between the buildings towards the edge of the river.

So, there you have it, my top 10 night photography Spots in London! There are so many other great locations to capture night photos of the city, from down in the streets, along the Thames and up high looking over the rooftops.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, do check out some of my other posts to help you take the best photos of London

• My Top 10 Photography Spots in London

• My top 5 free rooftop locations to photograph London

• My 10 top tips for photographing London

• My Top 5 Long Exposure Locations in London

Until next time.

Trevor

Forest Dawn | Weekly Photo #100

Wow! I’m ecstatic to have reached my 100th Weekly Photo story. When I started this project, I had no real idea how many stories I had in me and although it was clear in the beginning I would not be able to produce 52 portfolio-worthy photos each year, I still wanted to maintain a level of quality and not publish just any old photo just to keep to the schedule.

I started this project as I wanted a way to share my work without the quantity over quality pressure that seems to be inherent with social media. I found myself being more focused on feeding the machine, trying to crack the algorithm, and gaining more followers than the quality of photos I was posting, and I hated that! Since I started to post my photos weekly and even with a modest social media following, my engagement has increased exponentially. I talk to so many more people, receive so many more comments and it really has put the social back into social media for me. Again, quality over quantity!

Although I am incredibly grateful for the positive feedback and encouragement that drops into my inbox on a semi-regular basis, this project is very much a two-way street. Arguably, I get just as much from it as those of you that read my stories and enjoy my images. This project has helped me to improve my writing which admittedly, still has a long way to go but more importantly, it gives me the purpose and motivation to get into the great outdoors and attempt to capture 52 shareworthy images each year. With the last 12 months we’ve all had to endure, this project has helped me in so many ways, including my mental health and physical wellbeing.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF55-200mm | 64mm | 1/5th Second | f/11 | ISO200

At the time of my first post, 100 weeks ago, I was predominantly taking photos of urban landscapes in London with a bit of travel and local subjects thrown in for good measure, but over the last year, I’ve had to diversify somewhat and found myself exploring the natural world and discovering the joys of photographing my local woodlands and forests and that’s where I found myself on a cold, winter’s morning in January this year.

Although not far from home, I’d been to this part of the forest only once before as it was mostly open heathland and I tend to spend most of my time in the wooded areas, seeking out compositions amongst the trees but on this particular morning, I wanted to get out in the open and try to take a photo that incorporated the light and colours of the sunrise. This part of the forest works its way along a shallow valley so having parked up at the top of the hill around 30 minutes before sunrise, I made my way down towards the low lying land to seek out a photo or two.

Although I wanted to capture the colours of the sunrise, I still needed a subject and found myself looking around for some interest amongst the Scots pine trees. These tall, slender giants dominate this forest landscape as they tower over the surrounding trees and wildlife and if I could find the right one, with some interest and scale, I knew there would be potential for a photo.

As I descended the hill, getting closer to the valley floor, I spotted this pair of trees from the path which as you look at the image here, runs left to right directly behind the trees and from that vantage point, I would be looking directly at the rising sun. By now the sun was just coming over the horizon but the light was muted by the clouds in front of it, casting these beautifully soft purple, pastel colours across the landscape and into the sky to the west so I needed to get to the other side of the trees and point my camera in that direction to take full advantage of that gorgeous light that was hitting the landscape.

I made my way to the other side of the trees and got into position to line up a picture and at that point, I needed to make a decision. Do I take a landscape photo, keeping that sorry-looking pine, delimbed of its branches in my shot or do I go for a portrait composition including just that gorgeous tree to the right as it was looking beautiful in this purple dawn light? It didn’t take me long to decide to keep it in. The two trees were so different, representing two distinct, natural outcomes and I just couldn’t ignore the tension that poor tree brought to the image. I wish I knew the story there. Did this happen naturally in strong wind or something else? Was It just the trees time to go and make way for new forest life? I don’t know, but these questions, the contrast and light were all adding to a much more compelling story in my opinion.

Up went my tripod and on went my camera. Positioning myself quite far back from the trees, I decided to use my 55-200mm telephoto as I wanted to pull that background forward into the frame and with both trees adding balance to the composition, I set my two-second timer (to avoid camera shake) and pressed the shutter.

Back in Lightroom, I needed to work on the colours a bit to get them more how I remembered them when back in the field. The raw file was flat and desaturated, so increased the contrast a little and added some saturation back to a few of the colours, being careful not to overdo it. It was a special morning and I’m really pleased with how the final photo turned out.

Thanks for sticking with me all this time and here’s to the next 100…

…maybe.

Trevor

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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.