Tower of London Poppies - West Wall - Main Cascade
Nov, 2014Views
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
Taken at the Tower of London in late October 2014 during the Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red installation of ceramic poppies. This was one of the prime locations of the installation and was known as the West Wall - Main Cascade.Time
Taken close to mid day whilst walking around the Tower of London. We were lucky on the 27th October to have sunlit skies for most of the day and from this angle the sun was almost directly behind me lighting up the poppies really well.Lighting
As stated above, we were lucky on the 27th October to have sunlit skies for most of the day and from this angle the sun was fully "out" and almost directly behind me. No flash was required as the subject was quite a distance from me and in the bright sunlight would not have added anything to the image.Equipment
I took this shot handheld with my then newly acquired Nikon D3200 using the "stock" 18-105mm zoom lens. In this shot with the lens at it's widest 18mm setting. The camera was set at F3.5, in aperture priority mode which gave me a shutter speed of 1/160th of a second.Inspiration
As an ex serviceman I felt duty bound to attend the display which the commemorated of the centenary of the outbreak of World War I. An friend of mine and my family had planned to attend some months previously. There were thousands of like minded people on the day and we all observed in sombre respectful mood the 888,246 ceramic red poppies, with each handmade poppy intended to represent one British or Colonial serviceman killed in the War. I felt that this particular part of the installation was particularly beautiful and of all the photographs I took that day, this was my favourite.Editing
As you can see, this image was post processed. After taking the shot, I already had a minds eye view of what I was intending. My aim was to try and take the image back in time by using black and white. The colour pop was intended to accentuate the cascade. This original image is a JPEG formatted image, but I still used Adobe Lightroom to take away all the colour from the image with the exception of the Poppies' red. I then "painted out" all the distracting red that was not part of the main cascade. Finally I added a little contrast and "tuned" the vibrancy and hue of the red to blend better with the black and white of the rest of the image.In my camera bag
Back in 2014, I tended to have my Nikon D3200 with 3 lenses in my bag. A Nikkor 18-105mm - which was usually on the body as I found this a terrific "walk about" lens. A Nikkor 55-300mm - I only use this when I want a little more zoom. A Nikkor 35mm "prime" lens - I use this when I don't need to zoom and I want a tighter depth of field. In addition I have the standard on the move lens pen and cleaning cloth; camera USB transfer cables; a spare battery; my iPad transfer dongle, and a remote trigger. To be fair, nothing much has changed now in 2021 except the camera is now a D500 and I alternate my 18mm Prime lens with a SB-400 Speedlight as the D500 does not have an onboard flash.Feedback
The only advice I can offer anyone looking to take a similar shot is to try and not take the standard "what everyone is taking" shot. Often just a few minutes walking around your subject and you will find a unique perspective on your subject. In some cases it's as simple as getting lower down to get a different perspective. In this case, I walked past most of the crowd taking pictures (most with their phones) and found a more secluded view from the road looking back at the cascade.
