The View From St. Paul's

A few months ago my mother came to visit. She wanted to visit St. Paul's cathedral and climb to the summit, and so we went. On that occasion I just took a few snaps on my phone but I returned a few weeks later, awesome annual pass in hand, to try and get some decent clicks with my proper camera. Unfortunately the weather was against me. The photo above has been quite heavily processed to try and make the best of the sky; I've gotten quite lazy and you can see halos (no pun intended) around the buildings on the horizon. I also need to clean my lens and sensor. Below, I've deliberately gone for a silhouette type effect to mask the fact that otherwise it would be quite an underwhelming picture.

Still, I've learnt a lot about the location; I know what sort of shots I want to get, what time of day I need to be there to have the sun at the best angle and, like I said, I have an awesome annual pass and so I'm going to keep going back until the weather is in my favour. God willing.

Vertical Abstraction

Whilst I was in Romania this summer I went to the beach resort of Mamaia a few times, largely considered to be the most popular beach resort in Romania, the whole resort is squeezed on to a spit of land 8km long but only 300m wide. On one of my trips there I rode the cable car back to Constanza, it takes about 7 minutes to cover the 2km distance. Although it's a bit pricey it does afford some good views of the area and saves you having to wait for the bus/walk/swim.

Like most cable cars, indeed like most other forms of transport, if you want to take any pictures you either have to get what you can through a tiny, inconveniently placed open window, or, shoot through a half inch of scratched, dirty plexiglass covered in the spit of a thousand window lickers. Neither option is ideal.

Inevitably, this was the situation that faced me. My highly creative and completely lucky resolution was to blindly fire off shots aimed straight down to the ground. Obviously I could see roughly what was coming up; a waterpark, residential blocks and so on; so it wasn't 100% chance, but it was mostly.

The one exception to this was the picture of the residential block. The setting sun gave it a wonderful orange glow that added to the already decades old feel of the building.

Lest We Forget....

Pretty much everyone in London must be aware of the various commemorative public art installations that have been happening over the past few weeks to mark the centenary of the First World War beginning. With the passing of Harry Patch in 2009 this conflict did truly become history; he was the last surviving soldier to have fought in the trenches of western Europe. It is now only through books, documentaries, films and other second hand sources that we can learn about what is sometimes called The Great War.

I'm not sure a war should ever be called great. Whilst there are certainly circumstances where it is worthwhile to take up arms to defend an ideal or way of life I don't think that we should necessarily glory in it. War should be a last resort, a terrible necessity carried out only to the extent necessary and only when no other option remains. Was the First World War one of these occasions? I honestly don't know. I've read conflicting views on this and am not qualified to make a judgement. I'm not sure that anyone is. I am sure that we must make sure nothing like that ever happens again and that is why installations like this are welcome. Each ceramic poppy in the pictures here, and I have by no means covered them all, represents a fallen soldier. I don't know how many there are, many hundreds of thousands. Too many.

The same as the first picture but original colour

The Thames Barrier

Ahhhh, this feels good. Today I did something I haven't done in a long time: I went out with my camera, in the sun, to take photos just for fun. I wasn't doing it because the stupid 365 Project was making its daily demand; nor because I was at some event where tradition demands that a few badly shot pictures of blurry revellers be taken for posterity; nor because I happened to be visiting somewhere that, theoretically, I should be taking photos of. No, today it was just me, the camera, good weather, London and science podcasts. Bliss.

So it was I decided to head down to the Thames Barrier. It's only a few miles from where I live but I had never gone down there before; I soon realised I had been remiss, there were ample opportunities for some interesting photography. 

The Thames Barrier, then. Why is it there? How long has it been there? How does it work? And why does it look so weird? Some of these questions are easier to answer than others. The reason it is in that specific location is quite straightforward; the Thames, if you look at it on a map, is wrigglier than a three year old with ants in their pants but in this little section, between Silvertown in Newham and New Charlton in the borough of Greenwich, the banks are quite straight and parallel to one another; this makes it much easier to build a massive, water tight, movable barrier - the second largest in the world. Also, the underlying chalk bedrock in the area happens to be a little harder than the chalk and clay on which most of London sits and so could support the structure. As an aside, London is steadily sinking into the ground much as Venice is now, but that's a problem for another century. The other interpretation of the question Why is it there? - as in Why do we need it at all? - is also simple enough, if not a little tragic.

In 1953 a spring tide coincided with a severe storm over the North Sea, this led to a surge in sea level of over 5 metres. The first area to be affected was Scotland where 19 fatalities were reported, but conditions only got worse as the surge travelled south into the progressively more shallow waters of the southern North Sea. Approximately 1000km2 of eastern England were flooded with the sea encroaching as much as 2 miles inland in Lincolnshire and Norfolk. Over 1600km of coastline was flooded along with severe floods in Silvertown and Canning Town in East London; just a mile down the road from me. The result was tens of thousands being made homeless and 307 deaths. At sea, many trawlers and other boats were lost producing another 224 deaths.

Sadly, by comparison, we had it easy. The Netherlands, where a fifth of the country is below mean sea level and half of it is at less than 1m above sea level, over 1800 people were drowned as a quarter of the country was lost to the sea. There were also long term effects as being flooded by sea water is not like being flooded by fresh water. Having that much salt dumped onto the land devastates farm land or, indeed, any land where you might want vegetation to thrive.

As a result of this natural disaster, the second worst in British recorded history, the Government began planning how to protect us from such 1 in 1000 year catastrophes. Sea defences around the country were built/bolstered and a plan for some kind of barrier to protect central London was commissioned.

The design was first drawn up in the 1950s by Charles Draper but construction didn't begin until 1974; it was opened by Her Majesty The Queen on my 1st birthday in 1984 and, in today's money, it cost nearly £2b. There are five large piers and two smaller ones creating four 60m navigable spans and two 30m navigable spans. The 60m spans were specifically that size so as to be the same as Tower Bridge, i.e. anything that could get through Tower Bridge had to be able to get through the barrier too. I think my photos struggle to convey the scale of this area adequately; the river is over half a kilometre wide here, and you could fit Tower Bridge onto it four times just in the central section. It's huge.

Used with permission

So how does the damn thing work? Hopefully the diagram to the right will help explain. Between each pier there is a hollow gate with a circular cross section; when the gates are closed this rests in a depression cut into the riverbed  allowing the free flow of water. To stop the fluvial flow these can be rotated such that nothing pass. To close the barrier isn't a simple task, though, it requires coordination with many other flood defences in the region and costs about £16000 per go.

The Barrier can protect London in two different ways depending on which direction the flooding is expected: from the North Sea or from the river itself. It's easy enough to imagine how it might protect London from the type of disaster experienced in 1953, you simply close the gate and, with any luck, nothing will get passed it and the areas down stream won't be too badly damaged either. But it can also help if there has been a lot of rain and the flooding is coming from upriver in the Thames basin. It does this by closing the gates during a low tide, this means that once the tide starts rising again it can't get back up river and this creates a basin of low level water that the flood water can run into allowing it to drain out of the city more quickly.

As it approaches it's 30th birthday the Thames Barrier continues to provide protection for Londoners; disconcertingly, though, this protection is having to be deployed more and more frequently. In it's first 6 years of use it was only closed 4 times, in the last decade it has averaged 7 times per year. Is this a possible measure of global warming? Are flood events occurring more often? In the fantastically complex science of climate change it isn't possible to draw a conclusion from one measure of anything, but it would seem to support that. The barrier was only designed to protect against a surge in sea level of 4.67 metres. If sea levels raise by a metre this century, as seems likely, then the capacity of the barrier to protect the capital would be greatly reduced. Add to that the slightly odd fact that Britain is tilting (the south and east are sinking and the north and west are rising at about 5cm/century) and the future looks ever more precarious. The original design was supposed to provide solid protection up until the year 2030 followed by a period of ever diminishing returns after that. The Environment Agency, however, who now runs the barrier, has said that it has no intention of replacing it before the year 2070. I do wonder if this is based on good scientific advice or on Governments that are not willing to spend money on insurance policies. Hopefully it won't take another disaster of the kind seen in 1953 to force their hand.

The view to the west, Docklands and the O2 can be seen in the distance

After three hours I had only covered about 200 yards of the riverbank but I had had a great time. The weather and light were fantastic and it was good to be there knowing that I could write it up at my leisure in the style that I used to before the 365 Project consumed my hobby. I knew I would have the time to look into the history of this impressive structure and do it some justice in words as well as in pictures. Basically, I have my blog back and I love it. I hope you enjoy it too.

Review of 2013....

Soooooooo, it has been rather a long time since my last post. This has been due to a number of reasons, partly laziness, partly lack of inspiration and frustration with the 365 Project, and partly because I have been in Romania for the last 3 weeks and internet connections there were few and far between. I will finish off the 365 Project, I have a bunch of photos on the back burner that I need to process and get written up and I will try to have that done by the end of the month. For now, I'm going to do one of those lazy Review of the Year posts with some of my favourite pictures from 2013. I won't include any from the period I haven't posted yet, you'll just have to be patient for those.

In 2014 I will be going back to my usual format of a post every fortnight or so. I think this gives me time to get some decent photos together and the words to go with them. I think the daily requirement of the 365 Project ultimately lowered the quality of what I do here, which was one of the reasons I became increasingly disenchanted with it. However, this does not foreshadow the year ahead, I am optimistic and enthusiastic about the blog for 2014. I have had 70,000 hits so far which is orders of magnitude more than I ever expected and so thank you to everyone who takes time out of their day to see what I've been up to. I'll try to raise the bar.

The last 12 months have been the most traumatic and difficult of my life, much of it self-inflicted, but there were certainly some good times too. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me this far.

Gargoyle from inside the Natural History Museum, January.

View from Westminster Bridge, January.

Chain in Vienna, March.

St. Marco's piazza, Venice, March.

Venice, March. 

 

Parliament Square, London, May.

Pocketwatch, May.

Parliament Square, London, May.

 Dead flower, July.

 Olympic Park, September.

365 Project: Photo 351

What's that you say? Why have you posted a picture of the Hotel de Ville from the Grand Place of Brussels when you're supposed to be barrelling through Hungary by now? It's a complicated and frustrating story which will have to wait for another day...

365 Project: Photo 329

I'm not going to try to come up with an explanation to fit this into the theme of Relationships, I just like the lines, the shadows and the simple colours.

365 Project: Photo 303

Not an especially dazzling photo here but I like the contrast between the necessary regularity of the tiles and the different ways that they have weathered and been patterned by the lichens.

365 Project: Photo 295

A night out with workmates inevitably ends with me going for a walk along the river. Conveniently, the theme was Dark. This was taken on my phone, when drunk, from the Millennium bridge. The bright star above the moon is, in fact, Jupiter.

365 Project: Photo 284

Yesterday I played around with the tilt shift effect on SnapSeed and today I've been using the new HDR effect they have recently added to it. I'm still undecided about HDR. I think that, in general, people over do it; although I have seen some fantastic examples of the genre I suspect the amount of effort that needs to be put in to do it 'properly' makes it not worth the hassle. Here, I've tried not to overcook it too much. If anything, though, there is a more distracting element to the picture that I can't get passed. To me it looks like the left side is the near side of the Eye and the right one is furthest away, which isn't the case. I find it incredibly distracting.

365 Project: Photo 283

I was waiting about on the steps in front of Stratford Station and remembered that I had been on the look out for somewhere with a bit of height to try out some tilt shift shots. Sadly, I don't actually have a tilt shift lens to properly achieve the effect but most apps these days seem to be able to apply a blur filter in such a way as to give the miniaturising effect for which tilt shift is famous. I did this using SnapSeed, my phone editing app of choice.

365 Project: Photo 282

Not an awful lot to say about this one. I was walking passed Cardiff City Hall and took a snap.

365 Project: Photo 281

Mirror Image.

365 Project: Photo 277

This is my first attempt at a composition I suspect I will be coming back to several times. I'm not happy with it in its current form; the walkway and the staircase make it feel cluttered and busy. Needs work....

365 Project: Photo 276

My third shot of St. Paul's of the week.

365 Project: Photo 275

Hopefully this won't be one of the last clear days of the year. Westminster as seen from Lambeth Bridge.

365 Project: Photo 274

Another stroll over the Millennium Bridge tonight....

365 Project: Photo 272

I went for a gander around St. Pauls's this evening....

365 Project: Photo 267

The sunset gave this building a wonderful orange glow. The fact that the building is also a sort of orange colour also helped.

365 Project: Photo 266

It's been a little while since I did a grunged up picture from Parliament Square.