Remember a while back, when I showed you this photo:
I took that photo back on January 5th. As soon as I started working on it, I got sidetracked into realising that my camera was not misbehaving after all, i.e. not turning everything yellow. Phew.
But the reason I started work on that photo was that it is an illustration of that special sort of weather that happens when there are both dark clouds, and holes in those clouds, through which light comes ripping through, sometimes lighting up buildings that stand in front of dark clouds. The above blue roof was not the first of such brightly-lit-thing-against-a-dark-background that I saw and photoed that day, and I felt sure that it would not be the last.
And boy was I not wrong? As in: I definitely was not wrong. Because, soon after photoing yesterday’s flaming tuba player, under Blackheath Bridge and its railway station, I climbed up into Blackheath Bridge and its railway station, and through the windows on the downstream side, I found myself staring in amazement at this:
I seldom photo St Paul’s Cathedral. I understand why people admire Ancient Architecture, but I find Modern Architecture more intriguing to think about. But I couldn’t resist that. That is not your usual St Paul’s Cathedral photo. To me it looks not so much like a photo as like a collage, where I have stuck a cut-out of St Paul’s Cathedral onto a dark background, but chose paper that was too light for the Cathedral, to make sure it showed up clearly.
I knew that this effect would not last, and sure enough, it did not:
That being a photo I took of St Paul’s Cathedral less than a minute later.
Here is a cropped version of the special effects photo above, to make the contrast even clearer:
I know, lots of reflections in the glass windows of Blackfriars Station, through which the photos were taken. Guess what. I don’t care. So, the photos were taken through windows? So what. And actually, I think the glass may have increased the contrast, by darkening the sky somewhat bit, but not being able to darken the Cathedral, because it was just too brightly lit by the sun.
Photography is light.