London’s Pinnacle | Weekly Photo #91
Hi there. Before reading about this week’s photo, I want to tell you about the latest blog post on my website. A few days ago, I posted my 2021 “What’s in my camera bag for landscape photography” blog post. Not only can you read about all of the gear I use while out in the field taking photos, but I also share my thoughts about why buying the latest and greatest camera equipment isn’t always a shortcut to taking better photos. Click on the thumbnail below if you want to read the post.
Now, on to this week’s photo. I briefly mentioned this front-facing photo of The Shard on a previous post called Cloudburst Over London, where I was up at the Sky Garden Viewing Platform at the end of the day taking photos of a moody looking London in October last year. In the post, I talked about how the rain and wind that arrived not long after taking these photos meant the outdoor area was closed, putting a halt to any further photography for the evening. Thankfully, only minutes before the heavens opened, I had just enough time to take this wide-angle photo of The Shard across the river.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 10mm | 1/6th Second | f/6.4 | ISO200
There is so much I like about this photo. First up, the foreground made up London’s streets and rooftops which, apart from adding some interest into the lower third of the photo, act to lead the eye up and into the scene. When taken at10mm, not only does it allow much more of the foreground and sky to be included in the frame but the wide-angle changes the perspective. It appears to push The Shard further back into the distance, making it look smaller in the frame, but I still think it really works here. The Shard may look smaller but I think it loses none of the scale and remains the pinnacle structure, towering over its neighbouring buildings.
It’s the sky in the scene that really sets the mood here and I absolutely love how it looks in this photo. As I made my way to the Sky Garden, the sky was flat and featureless but not too long after arriving, a blanket of rain made its way in from the west and although it eventually put a stop to the shoot, thankfully it brought some welcome drama to my photos beforehand.
Lastly, amongst the monotone grey/blue colour of the overall picture, I really like the spots of colour throughout from the orange lights dotted around the buildings, the red London Buses crossing London Bridge, the blue lights representing our COVID heroes on top of The Shard and finally the last light from the sun piercing through a gap in the clouds and bouncing off the side of The Shard. Individually subtle but collectively, they make a big difference.
While taking the photo, I needed all of the image stabilization the lens could provide as with no tripods allowed up at the Sky Garden, shooting handheld is the only option and with a shutter speed of 1/6th second, a steady hand was needed to get a sharp photo. I could have increased the ISO or even opened the aperture a little wider but as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, photographing through the glass up at the Sky Garden degrades the quality somewhat and to prevent noise from a high ISO or softness from the wider aperture making it worse, the pressure was on to get a blur-free photo with the settings that gave me the best image quality.
With the UK vaccination program in full swing, I become more hopeful by the day that I’ll be back in London with my camera soon. I can’t wait!
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.