Tower Bridge – Photographing London
by Leo Hoang · Mar 25, 2017
Introduction
A few days ago, I went out shooting with a couple of my friends. We opted for Tower Hill as it was the most convenient place for us all.
I was at this location quite recently, however I was shooting towards the Shard.
This time however, I was specifically aiming for Tower Bridge.
Equipment Used
The Shoot
I began just outside Traitor’s gate and set myself up nicely up against the railing for a timelapse. It was around 5:20pm and I was looking to obtain a Holy Grail Timelapse facing the direction of Tower Bridge along with City Hall shooting at 12mm on a full frame DSLR.
Unfortunately I was unaware they were closing off the area at 5:30pm and therefore I had to leave promptly.
With the few shots I managed to capture for my timelapse, I decided to merge them together to mimic a long-exposure to not waste the current efforts!
Lemonade out of Lemons as they say!
I do find the tree on the top left mildly distracting, however this was unavoidable with this composition as at the time, there was an area blocked off further to the right.
I would assume it would be better, but can’t say for certain as I was shooting wide to capture both Tower Bridge & City Hall.
Its worth noting the opening hours for this area and if you’re looking to obtain a holy grail timelapse or at least a night photo from this area, you would need to access during december where sunsets are usually around 4pm and the area is open until 4:30pm.
Since I got asked to leave and I was still waiting for my friends, I hopped back over to where I was for The Shard photo and captured a short timelapse and also blended together some shots for a long-exposure type photo.
After I met up with my friends, we popped over to the other side of the river to capture a few shots at night.
Here is Tower Bridge from a more commonly used vantage point.
I bracketed the shots +/- 2 EV on the Nikon D610 at ISO100 in Aperture Priority, then merged together as HDR in Lightroom.
After a little stroll around this area and witnessing a massive workout group exercising by Potters Field Park, we headed back towards the station where I stopped off at the start of the bridge for a timelapse & photo.
Conclusion
This location has a good variety of shots you can capture of the bridge whether it be from on, or around it.
If you’re planning on visiting this location, I would check the opening times for the north side of the bridge to ensure you are able to capture the correct time of day pending the season and then move onto the other side for variety.
There are also plenty of bars and restaurants in the area, so why not check them out also.
If you’re specifically looking to capture the Bridge & Shard, there is another location further away, but I’ll save that for a separate post when I get a better quality image and timelapse to share.
Here’s what the view roughly looks like and this shot was just a test/sample image for my Leica SL first impressions.
