I haven’t made any posts in awhile, so I’m going to start posting details from layovers where I take photographs.  I’m starting with this trip to London in August, 2014.

Some of the maps are small, so just click on the map, or any photo for that matter, to see a full size version.

I departed Newark at 6:30 pm on August 13, 2014 and arrived in London near 7:00 am the following morning.

Our layover was scheduled to last until late the next day so I decided to improve my night photography skills. I didn’t have a clue where to start, so I googled “night photography tours  London”  and found there were no tours available on the 14^th.  Further research revealed that most of the tours started at Westminster Bridge and ended at Tower Bridge, so I decided to follow the same route, just in reverse.

The Marble Arch Tube station is right next door to my hotel, so I left the hotel around 3:00 pm and jumped on the Central Line train. I got off 7 stops later at the Bank station; then followed the signs to Tower of London.

Arriving at the Tower, I couldn’t help notice the sea of red filling the old moat. Two artists, Paul Cummins and Tom Piper created this display of 888,246 ceramic poppies to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War.

I completed my tour of the Tower around 6:30 and walked across the Tower Bridge and had dinner.

Here is a map to give you a general idea where these pictures are being taken.

After dinner, I came back to the south side of the Thames to set up for a night photo of the Tower bridge.  I took this picture of the Tower of London while I waited for the sun to go down.

This is an HDR (High Dynamic Range) photo of the Tower Bridge taken about 30 minutes past sunset.

The rains had stopped and the sky was beginning to clear…a fabulous night for photography.  I stayed in this area until 9:30 ish and then continued west along the south bank of the Thames.

I need to take better notes of where my pictures are taken, but I think this picture is of the Milennium Bridge.

By this time, I had moved west of the Blackfriar’s Bridge and this picture was taken looking back to the east with St Paul’s Cathedral in the background.

I followed the Thames as it turns south past the Waterloo Bridge.

Approaching the Westminster Bridge.

It was about 11:30 pm when I crossed the Westminster Bridge. That’s Parliament on the left and the Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) on the other side of the bridge.  This was a 30 second exposure taken as a London bus passed.

After crossing the bridge, I jumped on the tube at the Westminster station and headed back to my hotel.

Overall, it was a great night for photography.