London (Architecture)

[moopy goops]

Work took me to London earlier this year and to my surprise I got some time off too, so I thought I'd spend some of it as a tourist, so armed with my camera, a couple of lenses and filters and a map I went to see the sights.
I enjoyed the opportunity to wander about without anywhere particular to go, and I'm happy with these shots I hope you enjoy them too. All comments/critique hugely welcome:
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

[Brownbear]

I adore the 4th image for the beautifully composed scene set off by such a beautiful sky.

[ST1]

Great set Mat, well done. London as you have captured it looks great. Having worked there I never took my camera with me.
The crane image #3 has connotations for me, when I worked in the city, the office I worked in was alongside Southwark Bridge. The sight of cranes from Southwark across the city was regarded as a sign that the economy was buoyant.
Your use of filters works well when the Thames is in shot. Thanks for the memories.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Mat,

You made good use of the time.

I wasn't going to say anything, but you have asked for critique ...

In #1, I find the composition a tad confusing; there are too many subjects competing for my attention, but the exposure is good.

I think #2 is my favourite of the series, you had a good sky there and made the best of it in the 29 second exposure. It shows the permanence of the building/institution, no matter what passes it by it.

#3 is a good composition, but it might have been worth at least partially correcting the leaning building and crane on the left of the shot in PP.

#4, I like this composition too, however - if mine, I would have dealt with the filter vignetting by cloning in PP.

#5 is another great composition, my only suggestion here would have been to see whether the red paintwork (only) could have been made a little brighter with the red channel saturation in ACR (since I see in the EXIF data that you use PS CC and shot RAW)

#6, I have shot from there and that pile in the water is a nuisance, blocking the view as it does. This is another where the subject is fine, but the perspective, at the right hand edge, is a bit of a concern to me. Perhaps a slight crop to remove about 8% would help if a tweak of warp had undesired effects on the subject?

#7 Great effect!

Hope that feedback is useful, Dave

[moopy goops]

I adore the 4th image for the beautifully composed scene set off by such a beautiful sky.

Christina, Thank you for taking the time to look and comment. This shot was quite tricky too ! It's a panoramic combination of several shots and each one was taken at a different exposure, some quite long, and the clouds were disappearing and darkening quite quickly.
Another thing I remember quite clearly about that evening was the huge number of photographers all crowded into one patch of path. It was like some paparazzi moment with members of the public without cameras crowding around trying to get a look at whoever was being photographed, and there were huge crowds anyway on the bridge to the right and they started hanging around and shouting at each other. I've never had so much fun filming a twilight moment, it was more like a party !!

[moopy goops]

Great set Mat, well done. London as you have captured it looks great. Having worked there I never took my camera with me.
The crane image #3 has connotations for me, when I worked in the city, the office I worked in was alongside Southwark Bridge. The sight of cranes from Southwark across the city was regarded as a sign that the economy was buoyant.
Your use of filters works well when the Thames is in shot. Thanks for the memories.

Hi Peter, I'm glad you like the shots of the cranes as they hold special memories for you. I managed to get up to the 22nd floor (top floor) of a block of luxury flats that were being sold and were therefore empty so it was possible to spend the whole night up there and see the changing light as the sun set and the city came alive with twinkling lights. It was a great scene but when I was told the flat was on the market for £30 million I had to admit it wasn't THAT good !
Once again thanks for commenting
mat

[Shadowman]

Nice series.