Being a Tourist Again

London Eye, Photo Plod

Sometimes, it's fun to be a tourist again in my home city. On my way into work, I pass several of London's most famous landmarks. Although I always admire them, I don't have my camera with me when I pass them, and I'm usually reluctant to spend much of my leisure time wandering around the city because of other commitments. The other day, though, I decided to take advantage of the Bank Holiday and an early shift and take my camera with me into work.

After my shift had finished, I wandered down to Waterloo Bridge and took a series of photos down the Embankment, facing towards the famous South Bank. Nearly 3 hours went past in freezing conditions, and I barely noticed. I had enormous fun, carting my kit around from one position to the next, taking photographs of things that I knew had been photographed a million times before - I spent most of the evening fighting for space in among all the tourists and other amateur togs - but it was a strangely liberating experience.

There are probably not many original ways to photograph the London Eye - so I didn't try. In the picture above, I just applied basic rules of composition, set the aperture to f/14 and fired off a 30-second exposure to bring out the colours on the river, which has been reduced to a smooth sheen. A Google Image search for "London Eye" will bring up millions of results - and, overall, this probably looks like most of them. But this is my shot and I enjoyed taking it. After all, isn't that what this hobby is about?

Getting "out there", taking photos and not giving a damn about what other people think of them is great fun. So, be a tourist again - get the camera out and take your versions of all those landmarks you've seen a thousand times before.

You can view my full set of images over on my Flickr stream.