Before the madness of Christmas week properly kicked off, we took time to spend a festive day together in London. We wanted to try a new skating venue, having been to Somerset House and the Tower of London in previous years, so decided to try the Natural History Museum‘s rink.
Before that, though, we went inside and checked out the annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, which is always wonderful, whether you’re into photography or not! [It’s an incredible collection.]
As you may have spotted on our Twitter, we decided to venture on a rainy walk around the City, taking in some lesser-known historical bits and bobs and ending up back at the Tower, before the poppies exhibition that we’ve blogged about before is finally taken down. This time, we aimed to see them from an angle we’d not previously spotted – around the ‘front’ of the Tower, nearest the river. Here, there was another ‘wave’:
It was fascinating to see the poppies up close, via the means of some rather heavy camera zoom:
On Remembrance Sunday we thought it was an appropriate time to go and visit the Imperial War Museum, now back open after a while undergoing renovation. Especially poignant given the day, it was a fascinating trip and well worth a visit, especially to the moving [and pretty devastating] Holocaust exhibition on the top two floors. Cameras weren’t allowed inside the exhibitions, but Lambeth North tube was looking rather industrial and photogenic [usually I don’t edit my photos except for a bit of cropping, but this one uses an effect built into the camera that I was playing with as we were walking]:
The light-filled central hall, going up through the centre, features transport and weapons from battle scenes throughout the modern age.
With my other half away this weekend, you’re stuck with just me this week, as I took a brief stroll around London Bridge during a glorious Saturday afternoon, and decided to have a bit of a play with shooting in black and white. This is on the Jubilee line as I was warming up:
For those who haven’t been there, London Bridge has seen a lot of regeneration in recent years (most noticeably with the building of the fairly epic Shard skyscraper as part of the London Bridge station redevelopment), with a strong focus on glass architecture, particularly in places such as More London Riverside. As I walked from the station to the riverside, I spotted a nice image of the old warehouses reflected in one of the new glass facades:
A recent quiet Friday evening we’d both been at our desks all day so decided to take a walk around Hampstead, with the last of the Autumn light. As we set off, the nearby train tracks looked dramatic and shadowed in the evening light:
We just caught the end of the evening, wandering across the Heath and stopping to look back at the houses.
Then we stopped at the Holly Bush pub [they do an amazing Sunday roast], near one of our favourite Hampstead streets, for a cosy drink before heading home.
Not much worth photographing, since it then got too dark, but we thought we’d share these moody Friday evening shots. As we’ve mentioned before, we’d really recommend Hampstead as a beautiful part of London for shopping, eating, drinking or just wandering. Happy weekend!
So we have some special news for you today… And we’d love to know what you think!
Since the photographer half of us has just bought a new camera, the Canon 70D (details over on our Twitter) there’s his old 600D around the place. He’s looking to sell it, but hasn’t yet, so he very kindly offered it to me temporarily to try out a few shots. Although I’m terrified of dropping it, I’ve been having a brilliant time on our photography days out (making heavy use of the ‘automatic’ setting…). I’d love it if you’d have a look at my efforts and see what you think! Suffice to say I won’t be taking over as the primary photo-taker in this relationship, though…
NB: read this post first for an explanation of where we went.
Chandos House:
Houses of Parliament:
As part of the wonderful Open House weekend which swept across London recently, we braved the queues and decided to go and visit a couple of the open venues. But first, a gripe… Although the Open House concept is amazing, and the execution good too – friendly staff, efficient queuing and a huge number of open places – the app is genuinely terrible [so frustrating]. Without opening times and days despite them being on the website, entire venues going AWOL, and with an impossible map, we had problems planning where we wanted to go and started the Sunday heading to Portcullis House which was in fact closed. (Annoyed, we ventured on to Westminster Hall, which looked fairly uninspiring in the Open House listing; fortunately for us, it was actually one of the highlights of the whole project.)
But first, Chandos House. Rather random, and again not portrayed favourably on the Open House publicity, we chose it for the Adam brothers’ name and the fact that it was just behind Oxford Street, which was on our way elsewhere. However, it was possibly one of the most exquisitely gorgeous gems I’ve seen in London.
A confection of sparkle and pastel colours:
It was designed by the Adam brothers as a showcase of their design talent, and is now owned by the Royal Society of Medicine. You can in fact stay here, and it’s a remarkably reasonably priced hotel for such a central location – recommended for a special and secret stay in London!
Recently, the wonderful Open House weekend took place in London. Although our Sunday visits had a few issues (see the next post for that story!), on Saturday we headed to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to take a peek inside. The queue was terrifyingly long but surprisingly fast-moving, and we were inside and through security in about 20 minutes.
We were awed at what we saw when we entered! Surprisingly opulent and with stunning ceilings and colours, we very much enjoyed wandering around.
Designed by Gilbert Scott (along with other large parts of London!), there are various beautiful rooms which are [casually] used as meeting and conference rooms by the Foreign Office.
There are huge, grand halls, making it hard to believe it was a petition away from being demolished, being run down and largely derelict 50 years ago.
After a night out and getting home at 4am, we needed a very lazy morning to recover. We got up late and headed to Soho for the Village Fete. We saw some dancers and much bunting…
…and the Soho Waiters’ Race – apparently a long-held tradition! [Some took the “race” part more seriously than others]
This pretty much sums up this particular Sunday – drinks in Kensington Gardens. We lay in the grass and talked and snoozed. Perfect.