dancefloorlandmine

Here's an interesting one from The Londonist ... a version of the classic Tube Map featuring places that no longer exist. Possibly one for fans of Neverwhere, the Ben Aaronovitch books, or others. Nice to see a stop for Astoria. Also, alight at Old St Pauls for Londinium ...

Lost London Tube Map

On Thursday one of our suppliers took the team on a London Eye "flight". Of course, our working hours meant that this was an evening activity, and the not entirely clement weather that day dissuaded me from taking one of my SLRs. Which, having thus relied on my budget zoom compact, may well have been a mistake - I kept thinking "Damn, if only I had a faster lens and a camera which dealt better with ISO noise. Oh, I do ... it's at home ..." [sigh] Ah, the joys of 20/20 hindsight. However, I still got some shots that roughly passed muster - so here they are ...

Watching snow flurry underneath the capsule was also a rather ... interesting ... experience.

( Samples behind cut )

Main gallery is here.

The problem with cold clear evenings like this is that they make me want to drag my tripod and camera into the City with me after work, to get long exposure¹ shots of the offices and streets at night (or to play around with bracketing for exposure blending). Unfortunately, this is probably not the week for such hijinks - I've got something lined up every evening.

¹ Though, given how the weather feels, exposure's possibly the word.

Having unusually headed into London at night by public transport last weekend for a couple of people's birthday drinks, I paused in my progress to take a couple of shots of London at night - the new crypt entrance for St Martin in the Fields and lanterns in Chinatown.

( The photos )

Rather pleased by those, personally.

And no, I mean before April's Whitby ... I'm talking last summer ...

In July last year there was an open day at Battersea Power Station, as part of the public consultation on the plans for redevelopment of the area. This meant that there was a large balsa and perspex model of the planned design, and almost everyone in London who owned a camera seemed to be on site, wielding everything from camera-phones to pro-grade medium format monsters, all taking advantage of the (mostly) sunny weather and the fact that we could get a view inside (bounded by 7ft fences, admittedly). I didn't see anything with bellows, though. It was back when I thought 500 shots in an afternoon was a lot, but I've finally gone through them, evicted the poorest shots, and put the rest up.

I also did some experimentation with exposure blending (take three photos with different exposures, so one's right, one's underexposed and one's overexposed, and throw software at them - the end result can sometimes give a better view of both the shadows and the highlights at the same time). The most important tip for this is to make sure you have a tripod with you. I didn't - which makes matching up the three images again slightly more trying. [sigh]

Anyway, without (much) further ado ...

Battersea Power Station Gallery

( Some samples )

At some point I'll be GIMPing in something porcine over at least one of those shots. [grin]

For those especially interested, some additional links:

• BBC photos from partway through the clearing out
• Article from Feb on change of plans
• Latest consultation

The sharp-eyed will notice that a) the change of plan involves getting rid of that big tower and b) the latest consultation is taking place today (Friday 5th Jun) and tomorrow (Saturday 6th Jun). I'm not sure whether there will be the same kind of open day, but there'll be an updated model in the exhibition centre. If I go along, I'll take some more photos.

EDIT: Due to inclement weather, I'll not be going to take photos, but the new design has now been unveiled.

• The new plans - green roofs and reflecting pools

A couple of weeks ago, valkyriekaren and I went on one of the London Goth Meetup Group's "Goth Walks" - number twelve, a whistle-stop tour around some of London's churches, including mini-lectures on various sites on the route, a tour guide in cassock and biretta (he is actually an Anglican priest, so technically they were his work clothes, although the hat was less usual) and a borrowed key to St Mary Woolnoth, so we could see inside one of Hawksmoor's collection of barmy church designs. It was really rather interesting, and, being me, I took my camera along, resulting in a number of photos. I've split the galleries into two ... the places and the people.

The Places

( Some samples )

The People

( Some samples )

EDIT: In discussion with my parents this weekend, my mother said that I'd probably been to most of those churchyards when a sproglet, as churchyards are often good places to take a child to eat a packed lunch, in between museum visits. My dad then blamed her for my interest in architecture and goths. My brother didn't care for museums and churches ...

Two more galleries:

London at dusk
St Pancras Station

( Some samples )

These two don't really belong in any "gallery", they were just snaps taken incidentally while heading out of the office on a day I had the EOS with me.

( Modern Babel? )

( Banksy? )

The fence panel with the suspected Banksy has now been cut from the fence, and the gap covered by a plain unpainted sheet of board.

While at nisaba and willmate's engagement party in July, I stepped out onto the pub's balcony and took a couple of shots of the Thames at dusk.

Gallery is here

( Samples are here )

Possibly not my best 'river at dusk' shots, but OK for handheld, I think. Slightly noisy, as ISO was cranked all the way.