Light Trails Westminster
Feb, 2016Views
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
This photograph was taken from Westminster bridge on a very cold December day in 2015. I was the only photographer brave (daft) enough to be out there at the time. I was in place for over an hour before I got this shot. At first the sky was too bright and the first shots didn't show the trails well enough.I did walk past later in the evening around 8pm and there were banks of photographers, with tripods attempting the same shot. In my opinion, the sky was too dark at that point.Time
The image was taken at 4.36 in the evening (which is captured in the photo). There was still a bit of colour left in the sky.Lighting
I wanted to capture light trails from both directions but a combination of the traffic lights at either end of the bridge and slow-moving commuter traffic made it difficult to achieve this. I took several captures but this one was my favourite because several buses passed through. It's an interesting place to attempt light trails because no two photos are ever the same because of the variety of vehicles traversing the bridge : taxis, police cars, bikes, buses etc.Equipment
It was taken with a Canon 7D on a tripod in Bulb mode using a cabled trigger release. This capture was a 7 second exposure.Inspiration
I'd always wanted to do light trails at Westminster. I was in London in December and worked out that I would have some spare time. I decided to take my DSLR and tripod with me with a view to finally doing it.Editing
My usual post-processing workflow is to import the RAW files in Lightroom and rate them to determine which ones will be edited and which shots are non-keepers. I'll then use a combination of Lightroom and Photoshop with the excellent Nik (Google) plugins. This shot had minimal editing.In my camera bag
I wouldn't normally use my 7D when travelling. I own an Olympus O-MD E-M5 Mark II which I think is excellent and much more portable. I recently traded in my 6 year old Canon 7D for the 7D Mark II due to its improved focussing, frame rate and overall handling. I mainly use the 7D Mark II for portraits these days.Feedback
If it's December, take some thin gloves which will allow you to control the camera! I didn't and my hands were freezing. Take several test shots to get an idea of how long it takes the traffic to move completely through the frame. It would be good to do this just after it's rained so that you also capture the light in the reflections.
