Streets behind Tate Modern

Until earlier this year, when I still worked in central London, a favourite lunchtime activity was to take short photo walks over the river from my office to Tate Modern. 

I love the architecture and light inside the museum building (a former power station) and it became both a place to enjoy a break from the office as well a great familiar testing ground for various camera/lens combinations. I shared a set of images taken at Tate Modern when trying out the Kamlan 28mm F1.4 just over a year ago and I’ve still got images from numerous other lens-testing lunches to share at some point.

Today’s image is taken from the top of the new wing, looking back down at the streets below. I always enjoyed this view as the high-rise buildings and extra-wide curved pavement create a lovely area of contrasty light and shadow. I think it’s a struggle to take this photo now though, as the much-publicised battle between residents of the apartment building and the Tate Modern resulted in Tate staff being very proactive in preventing people pointing cameras even vaguely in the direction of the apartments (the building on the right of this image), although Tate did win the legal action.

To the photograph itself, I like the s-curve of the road intersected with the shadow of the office building on the left. Towards the bottom, the reflected light from the apartment building just catches the two people crossing the road in a nice soft glow.

The image was made hand-held with the Fujifilm GFX 50S and GF32-64mm F4 lens at 64mm and f/11.