South Bank Sunset

Thames-side bunting, perhaps left over from the Jubilee celebrations

Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that last Sunday I went on a London Photo Walk along the South Bank. This is basically a group of people that meet up and then stroll along a pre-agreed route taking pictures as we go. This is only the second walk that I've been free to go on, the first one being on Broadway Market back in January which I wrote about here and here. It's a really informal meet and the idea behind it is simply to meet up with a group of friendly, like minded people. I normally take my best photos when I'm on my own, when I have the time to focus on what I'm doing, take my time and not feel guilty about slowing down or ignoring whoever I'm out with, normally my wife. It's a little bit different with this group though as we all have the same ultimate goal: to share ideas and put them into practice.

This busker made a good silhouette but was singing Coldplay so I had to be quick

When the route for this particular walk was decided I had mixed feelings; I love the South Bank, I go down there at least every fortnight if not more often, the walk along the Thames from Westminster to Tower Bridge is one of my favourite past times; but, on the other hand, there is probably no where on Earth that I have more thoroughly photographed so would there be anything there to catch my interest?

The simple answer is: yes, of course. If I went there every week for the rest of my life there would still be new and interesting pictures to be taken, and if one day I went there and couldn't see anything exciting then it would be my lack of imagination that was at fault.

So what was there to see? Well, we stated at the London Eye and walked passed the South Bank Centre and on towards the Tate Modern; there, we crossed over the Millennium Bridge, scooted around the east side of St. Paul's and headed for the roof of One New Change, a new shopping centre. On the roof they have a bar and restaurant and also a terrace that offers views south and west back towards our start point at Jubilee Gardens and County Hall. The main feature of this fantastic view, though, was the up close, up high vista of the dome of St. Paul's cathedral. I highly recommend a quick trip to this terrace if you are in the area, it really is a great view and is separate from the bar so you don't need to pay to be up there.

Sir Christopher Wren's masterpiece, St Paul's Cathedral

As you can see, it had gotten dark by the time I took this one but that was always the plan; the theme of the walk was sunset, which is why many of my photos make use of silhouettes. The photo I am most proud of however is the one below. Many times as I have walked beside the Thames I have tried to take a photo that does justice to the lamp posts that line the route. They are incredibly ornate and deserve a suitably dramatic portrait. The problem is that if you do close ups you just notice that they're really quite dirty and if you do a wider angle shot then they just get lost in the busyness of the cityscape. Here, though, I think I finally nailed it.  The shot is close enough to reveal some of the detailing of the lamp posts and yet wide enough to give them context. The silhouette effect helps remove detail from the mid and foreground so that they remain the central focus and I also like the perspective as they slowly recede deeper into the picture.

My favourite picture of the day

Any Londoners reading this that want to find out more about the group can do so here and I'll end by saying thank you to the organisers for another successful walk.

Durham

I had been promised a visit to Durham for a long time, years in fact. I had been promised by my wife, repeatedly, in the build up to visiting her parents in the north eastern town of Hartlepool. Hartlepool itself doesn't have much going for it (sorry, in-laws); the last time I was there I did my usual walk around the marina and along the coast and whilst dodging a downpour I took refuge in the Museum of Hartlepool. Even this couldn't muster much to say about the town other than its peak was well over half a millennium ago. Today, it's probably only known outside of the region as the place that hanged a monkey thinking it was a Frenchman and for being the home town of that canoe guy who pretended he was dead. In fact I think my in-laws were once considering buying the house next door to him.

So, with this in prospect the carrot of Durham was frequently dangled in front of me and last March we finally got to go. Sadly the weather started out pretty awfully; low cloud and heavy showers left us dashing between buildings to avoid the worst of it but it did eventually improve.

About half way along its journey to Sunderland the river Wear makes a strange little kink around a large, raised peninsular and it is at the summit of this that the cathedral was built in the 11th century. The first phase of building was completed within 40 years, which is actually quite fast for a Gothic cathedral; even the newest phases of building were completed some 600 years ago. It was to this amazing feat of architecture that I had been so keen to get to.

We started to the north west of the promontory and walked south to a bridge where we could cross over to the steep, gorge-like sides of the cathedral's home. As we climbed it was easy to see why this was once as much of a military stronghold for the prince-bishops as it was a place of worship. By the time we were inside we had all got pretty wet and were welcome of the refuge, but there was certainly more on offer there than somewhere to dry off. The Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin and St. Cuthbert of Durham, to give it its full name, has several interesting features. It was originally set up to worship the aforementioned St. Cuthbert but can also claim to have the remains of the Venerable Bede, three copies of the Magna Carta, some of the first books to ever be printed in England and, as if that wasn't enough, the head of some guy called St. Oswald of Northumbria. Oh, it also doubled up as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from time to time.

Bede was a monk born in the 7th century who, amongst other things, was a chronicler of the history of the British people; Cuthbert was one of his disciples. I love that, even more than one thousand years ago, we had a strong and rich history that was worth writing down.

Together with the cathedral, Durham Castle forms part of a UNESCO  World Heritage Site

As with most cathedrals there is, if you're willing to pay for it, the opportunity to climb to the summit of the tower via an increasingly precipitous spiral staircase. I love going up these. It's a mixture of ingenious engineering, function playing second fiddle to form, the mild peril involved when you have to pass another climber and the always spectacular views from the top that combine to give a special experience every time.

The cathedral is possibly the most complete Norman building in the country and the eastern portion of the interior has a very different feel about it from most other cathedrals in the country. The great antiquity of the structure comes at a significant cost; literally. It takes about £40,000 per week to keep the cathedral in a decent state of repair, mostly in the form of wages for the six stonemasons, three joiners, two maintenance technicians and four gardeners employed in its upkeep, as well as a resident archaeologist that records and oversees much of this work.

The eastern façade

Once we had explored the cathedral it was time for lunch and we did well to find some excellent fish and chips, which always goes down well. By this time the sun had come out and our walk along the river back around the peninsula was a very different affair to our first encounter. The water was very still which gave me the chance to get some good reflections as can be seen in my first picture in this post.

So, I got to go to Durham; but this begs the question: how will I be enticed to make the trek north from now on? A visit to Whitby? Walking on the north Yorkshire Moors? Who knows, frankly.

Looking up at Durham cathedral from the river Wear