Alnwick Garden Brass

High Level Bridge

The pedestrian walkway on Stephenson's High Level Bridge between Newcastle and Gateshead.

Learning to see in the dark

Just back from a wonderful all night photoshoot in London with Doug Chinnery, ably assisted by Terry Gibbins, who also drove us between locations in his black cab.  It was surprisingly easy to stay awake and the time flew by.  The programme even included burger and chips at 3am!  All in all a great experience.

Besides the opportunity to visit so many locations in a short time, the best thing was learning to see and photograph scenes which appeared to the naked eye to have almost no light and no possibilities.  I came back with lots of images and there is much processing to be done when time allows but here are two unadjusted jpegs as examples of what we achieved.  Both taken in almost complete darkness with exposures of around 2-4 minutes.  Canon 6D with Canon EF 24-70 1:4 IS USM at 24mm and f11.  More will follow.

Millenium Bridge reflections

These pictures are of the reflections in the river from the reflection of the setting sun on the underneath of the arch of the Gateshead Millennium Bridge.   The first photo was taken a week ago when I arrived early, planning to shoot the bridge after sunset.  Seeing the possibilities, I ran back to the car for the camera and had only time for a single shot before a passing boat changed the reflections and moments later the sun went down!  These were taken with the Canon 6D and Canon EF 24-70 1:4L lens at 70mm.

I returned a few days later for another photoshoot.  The tide, river level, light and wind were all different but gave other possibilities.  This time I used a Canon 650D with a Canon EF 100mm 1:2.8 lens.

Gateshead Millenium Bridge

Two trips into town last week as the weather looked good for twilight photography.  Using a Canon 6D with Canon EF 24-70 1:4 IS USM and Lee 0.9 hard grad (first three photos) or 0.6 (last three).  Mostly f11-16 with shutter speeds of 30s.  The river was flowing fast the first time with a breeze.  The second visit was around low water with very light winds.