A cheesy & clichéd view

A cheesy & clichéd view, originally uploaded by electrolyte2006.

I went to that London on Monday evening as I had an all day meeting starting at 8.30 on Tuesday morning. So staying over the night before was the best option. Stayed at the Charing Cross Hotel which was distinctly average but it was in a great location. A very short walk to both my business meeting and Embankment, the Hungerford Bridge and the Thames.

Decided to try to take a clichéd and cheesy snap of London from the bridge. I had in mind a long exposure shot of either the sun set or of dusk with the iconic (and it has to be said quite clichéd) buildings of London all lit up. Unfortunately the bridge isn't as sturdy as it looks and there were lots of vibrations, especially when the trains went past. Which scuppered any tripod work. But even when there were no trains people walking past caused vibrations that rocked my cheapo tripod. Very disappointing. So I was forced to take shots hand-held.

The shot at the top of this post was taken hand-held at ISO 800, f/6.3 and only 1/25s shutter speed. So it was a challenge to keep the camera steady at that slow a speed. I just about managed it though. Some (not so) fancy processing in Lightroom and Photoshop Elements later and this is the result. In no way one of my best shots but acceptable enough to grace this blog, At least it's a record that I was there.

Business meeting was really successful though so it was worth going down even if the photography wasn't...