As a holiday project and as a complete change to my project on the classical architecture of John Nash, I decided to make Urban culture the subject of my next project. Places in London that came to mind, included Covent Garden, Playstation Skate Park, Camden Market and Brick Lane.

Before I went, I asked my friend who runs the Photojournalist group for some shooting tips (he is one of the best pro shooters of all time by the way – ex Fleet Street) and I pass these on in case they are helpful.

The key thing, as with wildlife photography and many other subject is not to go chasing around but to take up a position, be patient and let the subjects come to you. With luck, as you were there first, you will be part of the scenery and they won’t even notice you. But you do need to be ready to shoot from the hip if necessary. So the lens cap must be off, use a wide angle lens if you can, have the aperture wide open, increase the ISO a bit if required and make sure that the shutter speed is 1/250 sec maximum.

It is amazing fun and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I am doing. It is early days yet and I will hopefully post some more shots in the gallery as time goes by. Several new shots have been added to the gallery today in most of the categories by the way, so please have a look.

Please drop me a line with your experiences and maybe we can use some of your favourite locations on the goodphotolocations.com site.

Street Art in Brick Lane

Brick Lane

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The interesting thing about projects such as this is that as well as having to get to grips with the challenges of photographing buildings during the day and at night, it is an opportunity to learn more about the buildings themselves, the architect, the owners past and present and even the history of the period when they were built.

I decided to go for Regency architecture, which basically means John Nash working for the Prince Regent. Between them they completely changed the area of London, from Buckingham Palace, along the Mall, Trafalgar Square, the Haymarket, Regent Street, Regent’s Park and most of the streets surrounding the park.

They also had a big impact on Brighton with the centrally located Royal Pavilion which still stands today as the single building that most defines the town.

Working on this project, mainly with the Nikon D300 and using Photoshop to correct and process the images, I also took some black and white films and also colour slides, which for me still produce some of the best colour available.

I do recommend that you have a go at shooting some buildings in different conditions and hope that you enjoy the new images in the architecture section of the Gallery.

The Holme, Regent's Park

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For my latest project I am taking pictures of buildings designed by the Regency architect, John Nash. I am taking some during the day and some in the evening. Those of Marble Arch, the Institute of Directors, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket and the Royal Pavillion in Brighton all went well and without incident. However, when I moved to the steps between the two sections of Carleton House Terrace, things changed.

It was 8.00pm in the evening and already dark and I was using a tripod, an 18 to 200mm zoom lens and mirror up with a remote shutter release, but the place was deserted and I wasn’t in anyone’s way.

The way I read it was that someone left an office in Carleton House and had a close look at me as they drove from the car park in front of the building and into the Mall. About one or two minutes later, a police car arrived, went past me, did a U-turn and parked about six feet away, to my left. You can see their arrival in the picture below.

Nothing else happened. They were out of the cameras’ line of site; they ignored me and I ignored them. When I had finished, I packed my gear and walked away. I looked into the car but they appeared engrossed in paperwork.

Perhaps the rally in nearby Trafalgar Square when photographers protested about police intimidation has had some effect but clearly there is still something about a serious photographer with a tripod that disturbs people. Unless they park there every evening, of course – but I don’t think so!

Evening all

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