Battersea Power Station

When the alarm clock is telling you to get out of bed at 4:30am you know you're going to have an interesting morning. My plan this morning, was to photograph the cliche shot of Battersea Power Station from the access road near Victoria Station. I was aiming for blue hour so the sky wasn't too black, the forecast was looking ok predicting a little cloud which could mean for an interesting sky. Once at the location I set up the Gitzo tripod, levelling the legs. Then I fixed the 70-200mm f2.8 to the D800 body and snapped the combination onto the Really Right Stuff ball-head. I shuffled the tripod to and fro and rotated the zoom ring until I was happy with the composition I was seeing on the back of the camera's screen. All I then had to do then was to wait for some passing trains, and considering I was ready to shoot at 7:15am the commuter trains were passing on their into and out of the station. Ideally I wanted a few trains to pass in either direction simultaneously to fill the foreground with interesting, vibrant light trails from the carriage's interior lighting. The shutter speeds were between 15-30 seconds, the aperture at around f16 which would cause the pleasing starbursts on the lights. There as a mixture of light temperatures and colours within the frame which should complement the choice of shooting at blue hour. Green and organ of the signals, the red of the crane warning lights and a mix of red, orange and yellow as the trains passed.

As the sun started to rise I felt rains drops on my cheeks (this wasn't forecast), and sure enough it soon started to get heavier. The conditions i was favouring having passed i decided to pack up. I dried off my camera and lens and tucked it back into the Billingham that was over my shoulder. I then collapsed the Gitzo, drying the legs as I did, I attached the strap back to the legs and ball-head and slung it over my other shoulder. It was now time time to return to the studio to upload the images into Lightroom and discover whether I had achieved in capturing I image I was after.