landmarks

Summer mornings start very early, so I got up, grabbed my camera and had a wander around Manchester city centre. But this wasn’t a normal Saturday… CONTINUES BELOW

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This was a extra long weekend to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Both Thursday and Friday were designated public holidays, very unusual in the UK.

As I wandered around the centre of Manchester from 5am in the early summer light, I got the distinct impression that this was the morning after the night before.

The streets and squares were practically deserted as most Mancunians decided to sleep in after their celebrations.

It meant I had the place to myself and could go about photographing some familiar landmarks that can be difficult in a bustling city centre.

What gets you up early to go out and take photos? Let us know below!

An empty Deansgate in Manchester on an early summer morning

You can’t usually stand in the middle of Manchester’s busy Deansgate

In London, you can’t get any higher than this. Shooting up 800ft (242m) in an ear-popping short lift journey brings you to a partially open platform high in the sky with sweeping views on all sides.

This is of course The Shard, western Europe’s tallest structure. I was here on my birthday, and a treat it was.

The views are undoubtedly marvellous, even in the early evening when the sun was obscured behind cloud. But the notion of achieving utterly crisp images from this lookout is soon dashed – you are trapped behind highly reflective glass panels, at times a little dirty. The only answer is to embrace this as part of your photographs.

But there is clarity from this lofty place, with the upper areas open to the elements and the lines of the building. I often tilted my camera upwards, if 800ft was not quite high enough…

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This Shard shoot also nudged me into experimenting with some different processing techniques – a little Holgaesque tint here, a cross-processing effect there. These are intended to enhance rather than totally alter. How far do you take your editing?

THE SHARD POSTS

Shard traffic

High altitude candids

Skyscraper study

The Shard in perspective

Capturing The Shard