Once Upon a Sunday in London

A few years ago I had to make a business trip to London, staying in Charring Cross.  When my grueling and stressful business task was completed there,  it was late in the week,  so I stayed over the weekend to photograph some of the city scenes.  I am not really a big city person, preferring wide open space with few people, and city photography is really not my thing, but London is one of the great cities of the world with much history and much to see, so I could not resist this opportunity.

Early on a Sunday morning, after breakfast in the hotel restaurant, I gathered my camera gear and went out to walk around looking for interesting places to photograph.  It was not nearly as early as I would get out for landscape photography, but still the early morning city was quiet and the streets and sidewalks mostly empty.

I stopped a couple of times to photograph the empty street scenes, as I worked my way towards Buckingham Palace.

I walked on through St. James Park to Buckingham Palace, where people began to gather for the traditional changing of the guards ceremony.  The British are big on ceremony and they do them well in a big way, too.

I shot a few handheld images near the tall iron fence around the palace, before the crowd got too dense, then I retreated in an effort to find a place to set up my tripod in preparation for shooting the ceremony.

Just a sidelight:  One of the camera accessories that I previously used quite often, before getting a camera with a built in horizon tilt indicator,  is a triaxial bubble level in the camera’s hot shoe.  I was using one this day with the camera on a tripod.  For some reason, this little accessory always attracts attention and many view it as some magical green cube; but a few do recognize it as a leveling device and ask about it.  Today was no different.  A young British man asked me where I got this accessory.  I’m sure it is available from many camera stores, but I told him that I got it via Amazon.  He repeated Amazon in a questioning manner, as if he had not heard of Amazon.  So I reassured him that Amazon was my source, but that he could find it elsewhere.

It is not easy to photograph during the ceremony, due to the crowd and people moving about so much, so I did not get the quality images that I had hoped for.  Unlike stationary landscapes, people move too much for my photography preferences.

After the ceremony, I continued my walk, heading towards the River Thames, finding this whimsical nautical piece of art in a large mall area.

Late in the day I photographed along the Thames at London Bridge, The Tower of London and Tower Bridge.

Since these are all such iconic landmarks in London, I’m sure none of these photographs are unique and these represent a very minor portion of the many impressive sights in this magnificent city.

Thanks for following and stay tuned for the day before in London,

Ken