The View From the Shard at Sunset

I waited until the absolute last night (Thursday night) I could possibly go to the top (well, almost) of The Shard, as I'm busy until I leave back home for Chicago on Monday evening. There was a wonderful sunset that I missed just earlier this week so I was crossing my fingers for another, which isn't too likely in London. Well, I got lucky. Thursday was cloudy all day but it cleared up just in time for the sunset, which is when I booked to go up.

It slipped my mind to bring my polarizer to reduce some glare on the windows, which really bummed me out, but I got good enough pictures. it's noticeable in a few frames.

It was really an experience getting up to the top. First you walk through security (just like at the airport), metal detector and xray for items, and then several staff keep you on route to the elevators. You take that elevator to the 38th floor and that takes less than 20 seconds. Then you walk around the corner, directed by a bunch of people again, on to another elevator to take you up the remaining 30 floors. This is the lower level deck on floor 68, but you can walk up stairs to the 72nd floor, where there is no ceiling. I think there were about 5-10 additional levels, but the public aren't allowed up there. The Shard is like a pyramid at the top, where it gets skinnier, and the only structure above you were those levels.

I'm going to try something new and make the pictures bigger, I think it will look nicer, especially with these. The pictures are in chronological order.

The Shard is London's tallest building, at 1,012 feet.

 

South London Rough Mudder

Last Friday at 3am was the first time I had ever heard of Tough Mudder. I found out about it while looking at TimeOut London for anything that might make good pictures. I guess I found something! Even some of my friends back home in Chicago knew about Tough Mudder. Well after some frantic emails with "URGENT" as part of the subject, since the event started on Saturday, I was able to secure access for myself and my friend Tolga Akmen, who freelances for agencies in London. This time he would be shooting for Barcroft Media.

Tolga and I both missed the train we intended to get out of Waterloo station, so we got to the grounds later than we wanted. I let Tolga play around with  my 400mm under one condition, that he carry it once I meet him at Waterloo station. During our walk from the parking lot (sorry to my English friends for not saying car park) to the course, Tolga kept complaining about how heavy the lens was and demanded that I buy the new version.

During our time on the course, we were able to follow the same group from start to finish for the most part. My favorite part obstacle to shoot was the ice water by far. They had to jump in to chest deep, ice cold water and swim underneath a barrier and come up on the other side to get out. I love splashes so I had a lot of fun shooting it. I probably put my camera a bit too close to the surface of the water, but it still works, so that was ok.

The last obstacle looked like it should be illegal. They had to run through mud while getting shocked by electrically charged wires dangled from above. The only way to avoid them was to crawl underneath, and that was very difficult because there were small hills which forced you to get close. One guy tripped and fell, but on his way down he got shocked near his ear and stayed down for a while.

I still have to clean my gear, there's only a little bit of mud and a lot of dust on everything. I only got mud one lens, which was when someone slipped and feel right in front of me, sending mud flying on the lens, my jacket, and my hair.

Below are my favorites.

Tough Mudder South London participants charge through the last obstacle challenge of a muddy field filled with dangling electrically charged wires in Winchester, England on 9 June, 2013.

A Tough Mudder South London participant works his way across the Funky Monkey obstacle in Winchester, England on 9 June, 2013.

Tough Mudder South London participants jump in to ice cold water in Winchester, England on 9 June, 2013.

A Tough Mudder South London participant screams after jumping off of a platform in to a pool of muddy water in Winchester, England on 9 June, 2013.

A Tough Mudder South London participants climbs his way across the Funky Monkey obstacle in Winchester, England on 9 June, 2013.

A Tough Mudder South London participant gets a face full of mud after losing his balance on the Electroshock Therapy obstacle in Winchester, England on 9 June, 2013.

Tough Mudder South London participant lays on the ground smiling after he slipped and while he was celebrating completing the course in Winchester, England on 9 June, 2013.

A Tough Mudder South London lost his grip on the wooden overhang while another tough mudder can't grab him before he falls back to the bottom of the Everest obstacle in Winchester, England on 9 June, 2013.

A Tough Mudder South London participant celebrates after completing the course in Winchester, England on 9 June, 2013.

The mud pulled the shoes off of competitors while they ran through the mud, after the challenge most shoes are thrown out or donated. in Winchester, England on 9 June, 2013.

World Naked Bike Ride in London

There isn't too much to say about this one.. In cities all around the world, people come together, take off their clothes (or most of them) and ride bikes as a group around the city. They ride naked in protest of oil-dependency.

I started looking for locations on Whitehall but wasn't happy with what was there so I made my way towards Parliament and Big Ben and was happier with my options. I waited about 30 minutes until the bikers came through and headed back up Whitehall, towards Trafalgar Square and The Mall where I got to play with some light a little bit. I was barely able to keep up as they got to Buckingham Palace so I wasn't able to get many shots that I liked there.

Here are a few of my favorites that are mostly SFW. But just keep in mind these are photos from an event where most people were naked.

Riding across Westminster Bridge

Riding across Westminster Bridge

Riding across Westminster Bridge

People along Westminster Bridge react as the naked bikers make their way by.

A biker looks back while they briefly stopped on Westminster Bridge.

People on Westminster Bridge react as the naked bikers make their way over the bridge.

A woman rides a Boris Bike down The Mall.

The riders take over an entire side of traffic on The Mall.

People along The Mall get a good laugh out of the naked bikers and take photos.

A man shows the reason for the naked bike ride while riding towards Buckingham Palace.

Ireland

Since I haven't updated my blog in several months (3), I must be catching a mild case of the Brent Lewis. But it might not be a horrible thing.. maybe I'll catch some of his amazingness too and maybe even land a full-time photojournalist position right out of college! Yes, I'm being a suck-up, after-all he did post some very helpful information about summer internship opportunities and I was close for a few of them. Luckily, I didn't get one. Since I'm off enjoying myself in London and spending all of my money to travel around Europe (see below for example) I doubt I could afford to live away from home any longer than I already will be. I'll talk more about this and my plans for when I get back home in another post.

The second country I have ever visited was Ireland. I'm 1/4 Irish, from my dads side, so it was pretty fun to have a 25% sense of pride to visit the one quarter of my homeland. I probably only drank a fourth of Guinness of what a real Irishman should drink. And yes, Guinness in Ireland is better than Guinness in London so I am very concerned how it will compare to the Chicago version.

The first day of my tour of Ireland was spent in Dublin and we went to a pub that this one band called the Merry Ploughboys plays at regularly. They were a lot of fun and picked out people in the audience to participate, thankfully I was never chosen but especially thankful for not getting chosen for the Irish dancing part.

The next day we went to Killarney where I walked over a mile to try to get a picture of the sunset mountains in the background. Unfortunately the sun set to the side of the mountains but it still made for a nice picture with one tree.

I have to set the scene a little bit for this funny story, this was a group tour and it was booked by so many people they had 2 coach buses full of people and each bus staggered behind or ahead of the other so the tours didn't overlap. We stopped for a photo op at this nice little valley and everyone just went straight to the edge of the road like lemmings, but because things didn't line up perfectly I walked about just far enough along the road that the driver didn't see me anymore. I got the picture I wanted and then I went back to my bus.. but it wasn't there. Luckily the other bus was just loading up so I hopped on. I told the driver that Patrick (my driver) left me and he just burst out laughing. I'm sure it is in the informal coach bus driver laws to not leave anyone behind and since I was safe and I could use my phone, I thought it was pretty funny too. It turns out everyone on my bus was freaking out, which I got a kick out of.

I'll keep this one short, there isn't much to say about it anyway. But the best part of the trip was standing at the edge of the 700 ft tall Cliffs of Moher. It took me 4 different times at different places along the cliff to finally do it, I was just too scared. It was the scariest thing I have ever done and I would have regretted not doing it. When I took pictures from that spot, I held my camera out as far away as I could and didn't even look through the viewfinder, getting disoriented like that could have killed me.

Very soon, expect another post about my trip to Scotland which started less than 24 hours after returning to London from Ireland. I'm much happier with my pictures from Scotland.

Also, baby sheep.

This is me standing at the edge of The Cliffs of Moher

The overhand at the top center is where I was standing for the above picture

This is the picture I wanted to take that got me left behind, oops!

I was seated in the back, so I waited until their last few songs to go up in front, you can kind of see how little space there was between the seats in the foreground.

I took this one while I was searching for the mountains, there was still minor flooding from some heavy rains the previous week.

Look at that tree. This was difficult to take though since I had to position myself awkwardly to make sure all the branches of the trees I was shooting through didn't get in my way.

Inside Christ Church Cathedral, kind of reminded me of Dumbledore's lectern.

Castle in the way? No problem! Later the bus driver stopped the bus directly behind someone who was teeing off and once the golfer turned around we all waved. Imagine being that golfer and seeing an entire coach bus full of people waving..

I want a dog like this so I can herd GWC's out of my way.

The dogs did not like being near loud noises at all, if the camera on my shoulder touched the fence, they would run away. They have very sensitive hearing, the shepherd spoke a command extremely softly with the dog over 150 feet away..

Look at them cows!

I leave you with these. I'm sure your mouth is watering and you can't wait to have some nice lamb for dinner.

The London Zoo

Today I had a really fun and exhausting day at the London Zoo. I brought all of my camera gear and made sure I had something to keep it dry in case it rained, since this is London after-all. I got to the zoo at about 10am and stayed until it closed at 5pm. I never considered how long I would be carrying all my gear or how much I would be walking - bad idea.

It was pretty cloudy today in London even though these pictures don't show that one bit. I was lucky enough to get some good shots in the very short times that the sun peaked out of the clouds, the second image excluded as it was under artificial lighting in the Reptile House.

I spent the early hours at the zoo looking around to get a feel for what it was like and what I could expect from the animals. I took some photos but they didn't match up with what I got once the sun started coming out later in the day. Later in the day I met up with my friend Armando and led him through the highlights of the zoo, starting with the gorillas. He was nice enough to take a picture of me in front of the Reptile House which is where they filmed one scene for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I should probably say Philosopher instead since I'm in England..

Since I came away with some great photos today, it was hard to pick my favorite moment. But it has to be when was when I was near the flamingos. I already took a lot of pictures earlier in the day so I was mostly watching while Armando was taking some photos of his own, but then the sun came out and hit one of the flamingos perfectly so I had to start taking some pictures. The first photo below is the first frame I made after triple checking my exposure. I kept my eye on this flamingo and kept taking shots for about the next 2 and a half minutes. In the corner of my eye something caught my attention; it was two birds fighting. I quickly swung my 400mm towards them and just held down the shutter and followed them, these guys were really going at it. It was only 5 seconds from my first and last frame of them, I made a composite of some of the highlights.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the day. (Click for a larger slideshow)

Kung Hei Fat Choi (Happy New Year)

This was another event that I knew I had to go to well in advance. The Chinese New Year celebrations in London is the largest outside of London, so I was obligated to go.

It was a very rainy and cold day today in London as you can see in the second to last photo. By the time I left my hands were in a lot of pain, I should probably start putting gloves in my bag. Luckily during the parade the rain wasn't too bad so I was able to use both my cameras (1D Mark III and 5D Mark II), but once it picked up I had to put the 5D in my Think Tank Shapeshifter bag.

Once the parade was over they began entertainment at the main stage. Unfortunately I wasn't able to be near the stage and the only guaranteed line of sight was near the media tent, which I was allowed through. I'm glad I brought my 1.4x teleconverter for the extra reach, as you can actually compare the difference between the 16-35mm f/2.8 and the 70-200 f/2.8 +1.4x teleconverter.

I'm not sure what else to talk about today, but I hurried back to my dorm to watch the POYi Sports Action judging. Below are some images.

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