engineering

Dazzling desert towers

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Dubai is an upwardly mobile city, bristling with skyscrapers. They come in every shape and size, mostly shiny and new. The world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa, is fittingly found here.

In the piercing sunlight of the Arabian Gulf in summer and under a clear blue sky, photographing these towers is hard work. You have to squint and point your lens far upwards. It can be harsh and unyielding. But with these soaring lines the results can also be astounding – especially for a fan of extreme architecture.

Click on the first image to launch the full size gallery

London’s skyscrapers seem to pale into insignificance compared to the high rise might of Dubai. There is no desert light in this city. How do you think the two compare? Take a look at Skyscraper study and The highest heights to make up your own mind.

Beauty at the Barrier

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One is a hulking mass of steel. The other is a gentle spray of fluffy, lavender blue blossoms. They are in the same tiny corner of London.

The man-made structure defends the capital from floods, while the flowers perhaps have less practical uses. But they are both beautiful and photogenic, in very different ways.

The Thames Barrier sits sturdily in a corner of south-east London, a might of engineering which some might consider an unnatural blot on the riverscape.

But next to the Barrier, a wonderfully sculpted garden sits, and is full of blooms and nature’s colourful bounty.

More photographs will be published here soon. In the meantime, which of these beauties do you prefer?

Olympic colours

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The Diamond Jubilee has been and gone, and now attentions in London and the UK turn to the Olympics, just weeks away.

Our travels took us to St Pancras train station, the place to catch a Eurostar train direct to Europe.

It’s a thoroughly modernised travel hub, sat beneath a beautiful Victorian canopy which is an object of desire for architects, engineers and photographers alike.

A vast set of Olympic rings is suspended from the roof and is being photographed crazily.

I did my best to find a slightly offhand angle and perspective for this colourful capture.

But if you click on the thumbnail beneath this large depiction, you will see how the emblem looks to the regular eye.

Like the Union Jack during the Jubilee period, just how often will this Olympic symbol grace images in the coming weeks?

 

 

Millennium Bridge

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London’s Millennium Bridge shimmers at night with the glory of St Paul’s Cathedral above it. While I was pleased with the outcome of this shot, it’s a view which has been photographed again and again.

That evening a group of photographers had gathered on the bridge and were clicking wildly, while a man practically pushed me out of the way to get his shot.

So here ends a trio of bridge posts for the Jubilee weekend, starting with Hammersmith Bridge bedecked in a big Union Jack, to the unloved curves of industrial, neglected Barnes Bridge. It’s a personal fascination that I’ll come back to again.

But does a shot that has been captured so many times take the shine off your own effort?…

Beautiful Barnes Bridge

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Barnes Bridge deserves some love. It sits astride the Thames, down the river from its more graceful, elegant neighbour Hammersmith Bridge.

Essentially a railway bridge with a pedestrian walkway, it’s painted an indistinct gun metal grey and is robust, industrial and dependable.

But not beautiful? I beg to differ. It has graceful arches and is full of fascinating lines and curves. For the photographer, it has a myriad of angles and turns out well in colour, black and white and tones of sepia.

Its rivets and metalwork create a fascinating piece of architecture which shouldn’t be overlooked in favour of London’s more delicate, eye-catching bridges.

Does this get your vote?