Anyone who knows me knows I have a general principle based on lethargy and deadline brinkmanship. Avoiding all motivational quotes my own version to live by is;

Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow

However, with the stimulus of lockdown and the available time that that brings I’m finding the moment to bring things forward a day and actually do something.

That includes sorting through the roughly 50,000 images I have in my damn DAM (Digital Asset Manager), in my case, Adobe Lightroom, and finally processing many that had fallen by the wayside or into the category of mañana.

And so, for no particular reason, in the next couple of blogs here are some images that were taken in London just prior to lockdown.

Sometimes I make the decision to not take my camera equipment and rely on the iPhone. I do this because I know that I can still capture images and in most cases be able to process them in the same way as my Fuji camera, albeit with limitations, something I may address in my next post.

The Tate Modern cafe and viewing point

The art inside the Tate Modern may not be to everyone’s taste but the view over the river from the cafe is always good. I have taken this shot before but I knew the lighting was good on this day and I also wanted to capture a shot that I could create as a silhouette in the darkroom.

To be honest, I skipped the art in pursuit of interesting shots from the observation level. The tower blocks are the NEO Bankside apartment towers designed by Richard Rodgers partnership for those who like to be on view.

  • Relections

The Millennium Bridge just outside the Tate Modern always fascinates photographers and I have taken many there before. This time I grabbed what I could and was initially disappointed until I decided to experiment with different approaches during processing.

A subtle tone mapping to bring out the lighting
A heavy treatment using Lightroom and Photoshop to enrich the image and create an oil painting effect
And finally a more surreal approach to soften the image and the colours
  • before
  • after

The original shot of the bridge wasn’t doing it for me here so I opted to create a dramatic skyline silhouette instead.

St. Paul’s Cathedral

The Thames Path on the South Bank is an excellent walk with fascinating viewpoints and buildings. This part of the day was full of dull cloud, something I love as it makes for dramatic skies.

  • The OXO Building – Tower Wharf
  • Red Door. Cardinal’s Wharf building near the Thames Path, Southwark