London night workshop - Tate Modern to St Paul's

We were dropped off by Terry at Tate Modern. The time was now a bit before 1.00am and we were told by Doug that the lights illuminating St Paul's would be switched off at 1.50am. I started photographing around the entrance of the Tate and then started to walk towards the Millenium Bridge, finally crossing it and arriving on the other side just as the light went out. I managed the classic shot from the ramp at the Tate end of the bridge looking across to St Pauls, and then a less classic shot of a curve in the bridge. The blue colour of the bridge at night was electric and looked wonderful against the velvet black sky. I managed to process all the shots just in Lightroom except for some minor cloning out of a sign in one. It is amazing how Lightroom can cope with these extremes of contrast, especially in long exposures, although the wide dynamic range of the D800 must help as well.
Terry picked us up in front of St Pauls and whisked us off to a cafe in Smithfield where I had tomatoes on toast and a cup of tea for £1.79. Can't be bad. The boys had Chinese and curry which they struggled to finish (all except Terry who sensibly had a cheese sandwich). My stomach was not awake enough to cope with anything major. The clientele were all workers from the market with blood streaked white overalls and hard hats, except for one drunk who made a beeline for the table next to us and then proceeded to regale us with racist comments and make out he had a bigger lens at home! The cheek of it.












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