Britain gallery: London at night

This photograph is a few years old now, so I admit that the London skyline may have

changed a bit since I took it in the early 2000s, but it's still a favourite of London at night,

taken from Waterloo Bridge after a very pleasant walk along the South embankment (I think

it's actually called the Queen Elizabeth Walk) to Waterloo Bridge and the 159 bus home. It

was practically the first picture I took with a new Olympus E-30 and a 10-60mm F/2.8 Zuiko

lens, and being relatively unfamiliar with the camera, I left everything on auto. Having been a

film and video lighting-cameraman for many years, I was very practiced at hand-holding (I

once had to hand-hold a heavy broadcast camera for four hours to relay a live operation to a

clinical audience elsewhere in the hospital. The backache and muscle cramps were only

temporarily relieved by changing the shot occasionally to shoot the surgeons and theatre

nurses). So this night shot was hand-held as well; in fact on very few of the photographs on

this site have I actually employed a tripod - they slow you down and get in the way, and too

often commit you to a viewpoint which later turns out to be unsatisfactory.

This photograph is a few years old now, so I admit that the London skyline may have changed a

bit since I took it in the early 2000s, but it's still a favourite of London at night, taken from

Waterloo Bridge after a very pleasant walk along the South embankment (I think it's actually

called the Queen Elizabeth Walk) to Waterloo Bridge and the 159 bus home. It was practically the

first picture I took with a new Olympus E-30 and a 10-60mm F/2.8 Zuiko lens, and being

relatively unfamiliar with the camera, I left everything on auto. Having been a film and video

lighting-cameraman for many years, I was very practiced at hand-holding (I once had to

hand-hold a heavy broadcast camera for four hours to relay a live operation to a clinical audience

elsewhere in the hospital. The backache and muscle cramps were only temporarily relieved by

changing the shot occasionally to shoot the surgeons and theatre nurses). So this night shot was

hand-held as well; in fact on very few of the photographs on this site have I actually employed a

tripod - they slow you down and get in the way, and too often commit you to a viewpoint which

later turns out to be unsatisfactory.