Day Six - London Town at night

I wanted to make the most of the opportunity to take some night shots in London even though I was exhausted after walking around the Science museum. Diane made it all possible by taking the kids back to Ickenham on her own leaving me with the evening to walk around London.

Diane and the kids left about 5pm and I spent 5 or 6 hours walking the banks of the Thames and the following shots are the pick of the bunch.

I think the gothic look in HDR has been done to death but I really liked how this shot came out in an apocalyptic, end of the world style.

A view from the South Bank.

I had spent the week looking for some graffiti and on the final day I found this wall on the South Bank. There were loads of skate boarders and bikers doing stunts in the South Bank Skate Park so I asked a couple of them if it was ok to take some pictures. They were happy so I set up my tripod and starting snapping. Whilst I was taking shots they started doing stunts around me which was a bit scary but I got out unscathed.

I walked all the way from the Houses of Parliament to London Bridge but it was worth it.



I really wanted a picture of the Gherkin as well but my tripod doesn't do portrait orientation and the hand held shots were a bit ropey.

I loved the different colours reflected in the water.

I know the focal point should obey the rule of thirds but I preferred the eye positioned centrally.

The reflection of the Houses of Parliament was like looking at liquid gold.

Day Six - The Science Museum

The Science Museum was a challenging environment for taking decent pictures. It was really dark in some of the areas and using the flash meant that some of the scene was illuminated and the rest was in darkness. Here are the shots which came out ok.



Lewis and one of the impressive models.

In the Materials section they have some great hands on exhibits. I took this shot from the other side of the floor and you can just make out Diane, Lewis and Charlotte in the bottom right corner.

Lewis spotting a cool plane model.

Day Five - Bekinscot Model Village

After days walking around the sights in London we decided to take it easier today. Colin lent us his 7-seater and we drove to Beaconsfield to visit the Bekinscot Model Village.

The village was constructed in the Thirties and is an great day out. It had something for everyone, Diane, Lewis, Charlotte and me which is quiet an achievement.



Lewis and Charlotte near the start.

A view across the whole village.

Lewis next to his favourite exhibit, the airport.

Towards the end of the visit I started to take shots close to the ground as if I was in the village itself and I think it works well. Shame I didn't think of it earlier in the visit.

Charlotte next to her favourite exhibit, the mine with rocks on a conveyor belt.

You can't have too many pictures of railway lines and trains.

Day Four - London Zoo

Wembley Stadium from the tube train.

Charlotte enjoying the tube and Diane along for the ride.

Lewis enjoying the tube.

The giraffe house.

One of the many monkeys.

Big lizard say no more.

Cute Lemur eating lunch.

This heron was sliding down the slope into the water and nicking the penguin's fish. I missed it the first time but the heron was very obliging and did it again for me.

I took numerous shots of this butterfly holding my camera at arms length. Fortunately this shot came out reasonably clear and central because the rest didn't.

Another butterfly shot.

I liked the colours of this shot, the blue background and the green foliage. Although it makes it difficult to spot the green snake.

If Charlotte grows up to be a shop keeper I'd put money on it looking something like this.

Day Three - London Eye

The crew on the London Eye

All of us in front of the London Eye. I took loads of shots of London from up high but I seem to have missed them in my post processing procedure. I'll have a look through them again when I get time.

Buckingham Palace (obviously)

Day Two - Natural History Museum

It is a legal requirement to take a picture of your party standing by the dinosaur in the entrance hall so here we are.

Lewis mourning the passing of the dodo.

An attempt at the gothic HDR look.

My favourite gothic HDR view.

Day One - Ruislip Lido

Despite the best that Terminal 5 & BA could throw at us we arrived. It is Sunday and Priya wasn't at school so we took the kids out for some fresh air.

Feeding the swans

Heavy construction and water works.

All you need is a puddle and a stick.

Lewis and Priya and the big yellow thing.

Heading to London

I have finally processed the images and created versions for the web.

Sorry for the deluge of postings that follow but if I don't upload the photos now...

London Trip photos coming soon

I have finished processing the 600+ photos I took during our trip to London and will post a selection very soon. I am flying to Stavanger tonight and coming back on Wednesday night so it won't be until Thursday night at the earliest. In my defence I took lots of 3 shot HDR pictures so the real number is no where near 600.

In my last post before we left for London I mentioned about all the programmes set up on the Sky+ planner. Unfortunately several programmes didn't record because we had a series link to MI High which ended up having 2 episodes every day and filling the disk before the other recordings had occurred.

I set up remote record to allow me to set up to record Doctor Who online whilst I was in London but it failed due to lack of disk space. Luckily I found a repeat on Sunday night so we have a recording of it.

I am a great believer in technology making our lives better and I don't have a problem watching TV and films on my PC but I wish the BBC/ITV/CH4 would show more repeats of their programmes across their channels for when I am trying to find a missed programme to watch with someone else. Watching a computer monitor with more than 1 person just doesn't work. In saying that I did manage to find the Doctor Who episode but some programmes don't have any repeats.

I have purchased an annual subscription to the DigiGuide service on the PC which makes looking for particular programmes much easier but for Desperate Housewives S4E2 for example (not recorded whilst we were away) I found the repeat 20 minutes after the repeat had been shown.

When talking about our TV habits with Harini and Colin they laughed at our addiction to the goggle box. I was interested though to see that their non-V1 Sky+ box had four and a half pages of recordings. I wish Sky had a self install option so I could just buy the latest box with greater capacity, swap it with our existing one and give us more scope.

My name is John and I am a TV addict ...