Under London Bridge | Weekly Photo #77
Whether I’m photographing the high rises in the city or a misty woodland in Sussex, I tend to have two approaches to taking photos. On one hand, I will pack a bag with a selection of lenses, filters and a tripod and plod around my location, usually with a particular shot in mind usually coming away with a handful of photos of the given subject. On the other hand, I might be travelling light, with a single lens with me, where I just head off on a photo walk with the camera in hand and no fixed agenda, hunting for compositions as I go.
For more info about my gear, including my lightweight setup, check out this post: WHAT’S IN MY CAMERA BAG (2020 EDITION)
Both approaches have their pros and cons, such as when I have my tripod, I tend to slow down, spending more time in a particular location, maybe working on some fine art long exposures, or just waiting for that nice light to come to me, whereas when traveling light, I can be more agile, cover more ground and seek out more unique compositions as I go and it was during one of this photo walks in the city while traveling light that I took this photo of The Shard from underneath London Bridge.
Fujifilm X-T30 | XF10-24mm | 13mm | 1/50th Second | f/5 | ISO160
This photo was taken back in February while I was having a wander with the camera before heading into the office. I had with me my pocket rocket Fujifilm X-T30 camera and wide-angle 10-24mm lens which is a fantastic combination allowing me to travel light, stay agile and use the wide-angle lens to seek out and emphasise the dynamic shapes created by the city’s fantastic architecture.
As I passed under London Bridge just after the sun had risen, I stopped to have a play with the lines and shapes that frame this view of The Shard across the river. Along with London Bridge on the right-hand side, on the left, there is a metal staircase leading up to the road level and by getting in between these two and carefully framing the shot by resting the camera on the handrail, I snapped away and captured this shot.
In my last post here I talked about how I try to balance the composition and if you can imagine that the metal hand rail on the bottom left wasn’t in the frame, there would just be lots of empty space resulting in too much visual weight in the top right of the frame which just wouldn’t work so having both the bridge and the stairs frame The Shard from opposing corners, it solves that problem nicely. In addition, I particularly like how the triangle created by the underside of the bridge mimics the shape of The Shard but in the opposite direction creating a healthy amount of visual tension in the composition.
It was a very productive morning and I came away from the shoot with a nice crop of photos which happens every now and then when the conditions, the light and my photographic eye are in sync and it absolutely makes up for the many times I walk away from a shoot without any good photos at all.
Until next time.
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.