So, this year was my second attempt (first attempt here) at an all night photo shoot throughout the streets of London.  The plan was to all meet up on one of the shortest nights of the year, stay up all night and end up at Westminster bridge to try and recreate a few of the iconic images seen in the opening sequences of the film 28 Days Later.

We all met up around 7:30 (baring a few stragglers) on the south side of Tower Bridge for a few sunset photo opportunities.  As I have about 200 images of Tower Bridge already, I took a couple of snaps and then spent most of my time chatting with the other folks.

After everyone arrived, I set up a couple of lights and made everyone pose for a big group photo before we started our slow trek to Westminster.

The POTN Gang
L to R: Matt, Steve, Brett, Paul, Neal, Angus, Bonnie, Scott, Me

Our walk took us from Tower Bridge to Westminster Bridge via the Gherkin, Bank, St. Pauls, Smithfields and Holburn before finally catching a bus from the Strand for our final leg of the journey.  We were running short on time to catch sunrise at Westminster, so we’ll plan a bit better next year I think.

While the sunrise we had wasn’t brilliant, it did provide some terrific light at Westminster which enabled me to get the photo I’d had in my head for a few days prior to the outing.

We were expecting the area to be completely quiet, but London being the city is it there was still a fair amount of traffic and quite a few people heading home from a long night out at 4:30 in the morning.  Still, there were few enough people that we got the shots we wanted without having to photoshop anyone out of the scene.

Definitely a great night out and worth the red bull shakes I had the following day.

As always, there are a few more shots in the gallery.

I think I’m going to have to create an album just for shots of London, as my new project has me out quite often shooting scenes within the city. This past Saturday had me out with Lord Crawley again shooting the oft-photographed south bank including Westminster, the eye and even the Banksy Tunnel.

I’ve shot the tunnel in the past, but this time I dragged along some lighting kit to do a portrait shot or two.  Lee was kind enough to be my model for the evening, which made things much easier!

We also managed to spin a couple of orbs on the south bank, much to the surprise of the passersby out for a quiet stroll.  At one point I was worried about collecting tips as a street performer while I stood on a raised dais whirling my LED’s around.  Still, I think it was worth it and I wouldn’t have said no to a few quids worth of coins.

Sunday was spent with my friend Su Kim doing some portrait head shots for her London relocations website.  It was fun to do something in a psudo-professional capacity and getting a free, yummy lunch out of the deal just made my day!  We’re still in the selection process, but there should be one or two processed photos online shortly.  If not here than at the very least on my 365 site as I didn’t take any other photos that day.

A few more shots from the weekend are available in the gallery.

I was out with a few of the guys from POTN again this past Friday.  The plan was to get a few London Landmark photos for Ian to adorn his walls with, but I ended up spending a lot of my time playing with lights again.  It had been a while since I’d made any orbs and didn’t want to get too out of practice.  Also, I’ve been chatting with quite a few folks on Flickr about making the orb tools so it sort of put me back in the mood.

Neal and I walked from my place along the north bank to St. Paul’s, shooting the standard stuff along the way and trying to stay warm.  After my recent trip to Harbin I figured that the -2 degree weather wouldn’t bother me that much, but given enough time it’s hard to distinguish -2 from -20.

I spent most of the evening playing around with my tilt-shift lens.  I love it for shooting buildings and it’s even fun to play with when light painting.  It’s nice because it’s a slow-to-use lens that makes you take your time and think about what you’re doing, and manual focus always adds to the challenge.

Tide was out so we got down under the millennium bridge for a few of the ‘standard’ photos of it and St. Paul’s.  It’s one of those scenes that’s so often photographed that I just don’t have the creative capacity to shoot something new.  Still, I’m content with the results of the evening.

Also, I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen an orb done in this location before so it’s got to count as unique right?

Couple more images in the gallery.

A few of the POTN lads and I snuck down to Brighton on a school night to do a bit of sea-side light painting.  There wasn’t a whole lot of time, but we managed to get a few shots in before having to scurry back to London.

Thanks to Lee & Matt for bringing along some additional lights and to Neal for being my bitch chauffeur and driving me all the way back to London.  I owe you a few pints for that one mate, cheers!

The POTN thread for this night out is here, and there are a couple more (samey) images in the gallery here.

These are just a few quick shots from my last outing.  I wandered to the canals that run between my flat and the Thames hoping for a bit of darkness.  It’s so hard to find dark places in London, far to many lights!

It was also an excuse to try out the new light toy I built.  I like it, but it needs work.