I have had the pleasure of visiting London on many occasions throughout the years, but never before have I taken the time, or had the opportunity, to photograph this magnificent city. This summer changed that.

As usual for summer-trips, this was part of the annual family-vacation. We had planned to stay in London for one full week, and of course had set off time to the usual tourist stuff during daytime. London is quite busy in the end of July, filled with tourists as it is. However, I figured that this wouldn’t affect my photography to any degree, as I mostly planned (pre) sunrise- outings. I was right about that. We booked a hotel in an area well know to us from previous visits, South Kensington. Sunrise is quite early in July, even before the Tube starts running, so I had to take a black-cab out to locations, and then the Tube back to the hotel. London Underground is fabulous.

As I had not photographed London seriously before, I decided to dedicate my time to the most well known, iconic locations, or clichés if you will. That meant spending most mornings on the stretch along the Thames from Westminster to Tower Bridge. Conditions were quite nice for photography. I had one morning with light rain, but it was mostly partly clouded, and I even got a couple of nice sunrises. I mostly used my Hasselblad X2D with the 21, 30 or 35-75mm, all carried around in my Billingham 207. I also brought the 90mm, but never used it on the entire trip. For me, London is a wide-angle-to-normal location. A 10-stop ND-filter came in handy on a few shots, glad I brought that too. I had no problems using a tripod anywhere along the stretch from Westminster to Tower Bridge, although I have heard they don’t allow it around More London. The hour and the darkness may have helped me there. I didn’t encounter any other problems either. Safety never felt as a concern, even in the middle of the night, alone with quite expensive gear. On the contrary, the people I met were very nice and curious about my photography.

I had planned an evening visit to Canary Wharf, as I also enjoy photographing modern architecture. A few words about this location: Getting there by Tube is easy. The rest can be tricky for photographers, as there are lots of security and tripods are a definite no-no. For this location I brought only my Nikon Z7ii with the 24-200 and the 14-30, planning for only hand-held shooting. As night approached that meant iso 25000, but with modern noise-reduction software, the results came out technically very nice. Even if I only shot hand-held, and probably passed for a regular tourist, not a photographer, I was approached by security several times and asked what I was doing. They were not unpleasant, but If you dislike this kind of encounters, this location might not be for you. Nice architecture, and great fun to photography though.

London was a joy to photograph, and I’m really looking forward to more visits in the future to explore other sides of the city.