Blue Hour by the River Thames

A couple of Saturdays ago, there was fog and grey cloud on the forecast. I decided it would be fun to take photos in a more urban area, so I got up early and cycled to Richmond, while it was still dark. The idea was to photograph Richmond Bridge while the street lights were still on - I thought it could look really atmospheric in the fog. It's a place that I have walked and cycled past many times, and enjoyed pints of beer in the proximity of, but have never photographed. It's a popular sunrise location, but I thought that the dark and fog would make an atmospheric alternative.

The first thing I realised was that the boats that are moored up on either side of the bridge have quite a lot of lateral movement, even though on this morning the water was pretty flat. It made it impossible to photograph in the darkness, because the boats were rendered blurry with a long shutter speed. I checked out some compositions, and chatted to a random man who was out for an early walk, and killed a little time until the sky became lighter, and my shutter speed was sufficiently quick to capture the boats without any blur.

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Blue Hour by the Thames

The blue hour window where the lights were on, and there was enough ambient light to take some shots, was actually quite brief. I took a composition from each side of the bridge. No sooner had I taken the second image, the lights along the bridge switched off. As the darkness dissolved, the water became choppy, and I was left with murky grey morning, and a gloomy River Thames.

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Man on the Bridge

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I drank my flask of tea, and cycled home.

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