St Paul's and Millennium Bridge

Great blue, cloudless sky in this photo. This is the Millennium Bridge taken from the Southwark end (where the Tate Modern is), with St Paul's in the background. It's amazing the number of joggers who are up running along the bridge (at 0600...), phased such that as one leaves the frame the other one comes into it. I though that this was a little odd until I saw a group around a corner queueing up to do this...

The bridge makes a great contrast to the dome of St Paul's and frames it well, I left the tower cranes in this photo as I felt it helps frame the shot. A newspaper on the ramp has been removed as well as a cup. Normally I find removing litter myself is easier than trying to clone it out but ony had a moment to take this with only a few people in the frame.

1/100s at f/10 24 mm ISO 100

Westminster Abbey - North Entrance

The north transept and visitor entrance to Westminster Abbey, early morning about 0650. The large round window is a Rose Window. Grounds were nice and quiet early in the morning though there were a couple of commuters wandering around in my frame, also rather unusually a small group of Oriental tourists with their luggage. I had no idea where they were going at that time in the morning but they were in my way.

1/40s at f/22 ISO 160 20 mm -1EV

Buckingham Palace

This was taken early morning a few weeks ago when the UK was having a bit of a summer. I got up at 0500 to get the second tube to Embankment, then walked from Trafalgar Square down the mall to Buckingham Palace. It was great to be able to see such a popular tourist attraction with no one there and the morning sunshine was fantastic.

Buckingham Palace is, of course, one of the residences of the Queen of the UK. She was in that morning as the royal standard is up, though there was no wind so early in the morning so it is just hanging off the flagpole. As the morning wore on the wind picked up and you can see it flying here. The big monument on the right is the Queen Victoria Memorial, she is out of shot and looks down the mall towards Trafalgar Square. You can also see the lampost on the far right bent slightly to the left due to the wide lens angle.

1/60s at f/10 ISO 100 32 mm circlar polarizer

Intense Blue Ice Cave - Antarctica

Blue ice is formed by compression of snow in glaciers. Air bubbles are squeezed out by the pressure.

We saw this iceberg cave whilst sailing between icebergs in a Zodiac boat in the Gerlache Strait, just looking to see what we could find. One iceberg had a couple of crabeater seals resting but this blue ice cave was easily the highlight. The day was overcast and this brought out the colours of the ice.

The Gerlache Strait, 64S 62W, is wider and east of the Neumayer Channel.

1/160s at f/13 ISO 100

Neumayer Channel

The Neumayer Channel, 65°S 63°W, is 16 miles long and about 1.5 miles wide on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula. Wiki link here. It separates Anvers Island from Wiencke and Doumer Island, part of the Palmer Archipelago. This photo was taken at 2300 local time, with sunset that evening at 2350. To me, with the wildlife, these were the types of scenes that I had come to see.

The ripples in the water were created by our boat moving slowly through the channel, I think partly so we would enjoy the view and also to push carefully through the sea ice. There was little wind so it was cold outside but not really cold if you had most of your gear on.

A larger version of this photo has been uploaded here and can be found in colour at PSC. It will also be found shortly framed in an art gallery in Fulham. I hope there will be some punters...

Handheld 1/40 at f/10, ISO 100 and circular polarizer

Tabular icebergs and sea ice

Very moody photo that was taken as our boat was entering the Drake Passage on the return to Ushuaia; the southern most city in the world on the tip of South America. It's a two day crossing at this point and can be pretty uncomfortable as this is the Southern Ocean.

These tabular icebergs are formed when ice fractures off an iceshelf and floats away and can be immense. The sea ice around the icebergs are formed when smaller icebergs calve off the larger one, the shockwave from the ice falling into the sea pushes smaller ice fragments out into a ring.

I like this from the stormy feel of the clouds.

24mm ISO 200 1/40 f/14

Just joined redbubble and some of my antarctica landscapes are there feedback welcome on my images!

March of the Penguins?

Brown Bluff, on the northern tip of the Antractic peninsula. These Adelies were looking to enter the sea, however, they knew (and we knew) that there was a leopard seal patrolling the waters looking for penguins. The Adelies would walk up and down the beach looking for a place to enter the water, when they did a whole lot would scramble into the sea at once, reducing the individual chance of getting attacked.

Overcast light conditions and long lens: 300 mm 1/400 f7.0 ISO 400

Chinstrap Penguins

It was snowing on Half Moon Island in the South Shetland Islands making visbility pretty poor with low light conditions. These chinstrap penguins had the decency to walk in a nice line, evenly spaced apart. They are distinctive from the black line running beneath the chin and are the second most common Antarctic penguin.

ISO 200 1/320 f8.0

Adelie Penguins

Cute couple of Adelie Penguins in Antarctica. They tend to follow the same path through the snow so it can be quite easy to wait for them to come to you. These two were traversing the beach on Petermann Island and I used a long lens to get them as they walked towards me. 1/400 f10