Foggy London | Weekly Photo #55
Another week goes by which means it’s now been 14 weeks since I last took my camera to London. Photographing the city was relatively easy for me before the pandemic as I work in London but due to the ongoing social distancing in place, the company I work for has told us our work-from-home policy will continue until 2021, meaning, if I want to take urban landscape photos again anytime soon, I will have to just bite the bullet and jump on the train. So, that’s what I plan to do.
Since the lockdown has started to ease here in the UK, I’ve enjoyed photographing my local area and while I continue to be predominantly based outside the city, I will continue to do so, but from next week, I a plan to be in the city with my camera and face-mask at least once a week.
Fujifilm X-T10 | XF35mm f2 | 35mm | 1/200th Sec | f/4 | ISO200
“Without the fog, London would not be a beautiful city. It is fog that gives it its magnificent amplitude...its regular and massive blocks become grandiose in that mysterious mantle.”
Here’s a photo I took in February last year from London Bridge, looking east along the River Thames. I was looking forward to the shoot as my weather app had predicted some misty conditions which can create some awesome. atmospheric photos, but as I left the station, it quickly became clear to me that getting a shot wasn’t going to be easy. What I expected to be misty conditions turned out to be dense fog with visibility of just a few feet which doesn’t make for great conditions for landscape photography.
As I crossed London Bridge, I started to think I should just carry on, past and head into work as there was no way I could take a shot in these conditions. but as I got further across, I noticed that as the fog moved along the river, it occasionally cleared enough for me to get a faint glimpse of HMS Belfast just down the river, so with about an hour before I had to get on the tube and head to the office, I dialled in my camera settings and waited….and waited some more.
Subtle breaks in the fog came and went but it was around 30 minutes or so before the fog eventually cleared just enough for me to capture this photo where HMS Belfast was visible enough, providing the focal point the shot needed. So, with only a few seconds before the scene disappeared again, I fired the shutter.
Back in Lightroom, I needed to adjust the white balance, bringing it closer to the cooler tones I witnessed while out on that bridge but other changes such as adding or removing contrast and specific tone adjustments were made selectively to specific areas using the radial filter. Apart from the above-mentioned edits, not much more was done to the image.
This is a far cry from the high impact sunset, city skyline shots I often capture and probably won’t stop many in their tracks while scrolling through their Instagram feeds but I really like the muted, minimal, atmospheric feeling the photo has captured and I’m happy I stuck around long enough for the fog to clear for just a few seconds that morning.
Cheers
Trevor
This post is featured in my Weekly Photo series where I post a new photo every Monday. To have this delivered directly to your inbox, you can subscribe to the mailing list here.