Here is something we can learn from Merakiphotographer about the techniques and story behind this awarded photo. Meraki is a professional freelance travel, landscape and cityscape London based photographer originally from Milano.
I always loved the House of Parliament in London. It is such a beautiful, historical building that I cannot miss the chance to have a photo of it. I took the picture at sunset, in a very cold day of London winter. I step down to Westminster a couple of hours before the sunset. It was extremely cloudy so I decided to go for some long exposure to enhance the silky water effect. Luckily, just before the sunset, the sky let some ray beam filter throughout the clouds thus creating a magnificent dynamic range from the very bold yellow to the mild blue. It has been worth waiting! A photographer shall always persevere! This is a very simple shot composition-wise whilst the long exposure was quite challenging provided that the light was not uniform across the frame, the crossing-river boats let the water not that silky and the weather conditions were suddenly changing. All in all, I am pretty happy with the result!
The photo shown above has a very classic frame, so popular among photographers and tourist. During the week end it is so crowded that you have to get there on time if you want to take a good place. I love the different compositions you can get, the leading lines of the bridge, the way the light pours down to the river and the bridge itself guiding the sight down to the building. My PP is always driven to enhance the atmosphere I experienced during my shooting. It is not a standard set of actions. As to this frame I really just open up the shadows, provided that the sun just fall behind the building (left side), and saturated a bit the sky and the water to have the real sunset colours come back as they were at the moment I shot this frame. A bit of vignetting to add drama to the scene and that's all folks!
I choose from time to time the equipment I have with me, driven by the specific needs and naturally based on the frame I have to capture. I usually carry my two Canon 5DSr, my Lee ND Filters sets and my tripod. In case of architectural works I enjoy the superb Canon 17mm and 24mm TSE: you simply cannot miss them since they allow you to perfectly frame the scene. Otherwise, I love to leverage on my Zeiss 15mm f/2.8, the beautiful Canon EF 16-35 f/4 and the super-resolving Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8 II. For portraits... there is only the Barrel, the mighty Canon 85mm f/1.2. To complete the set I added the Canon 100-400mm II.
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