Milan monochrome morning
Early morning sunlight casting long shadows on the flagstones and marble mosaics of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Milan, Lombardy, Italy. Image © fotoVoyager 2009.
I haven’t worked with black and white film since the advent of affordable digital SLRs and I can’t say I miss the roller coaster lottery of developing and printing, though it was quite a satisfying craft when it worked out as you expected. I do miss the graphic boldness of a high contrast monochrome image though and some pictures – like these – are just begging for this treatment. Because my workflow involves Lightroom to process the images (a new digital craft not dissimilar to old school developing) it was easy to convert them to greyscale and adjust the tones to my liking to give this classic contre-jour feel, a timeless bold expressiveness that concentrates the viewer’s eye to the composition and lighting that colour sometimes disguises.
These images were taken on the first morning I had in Milan without rain. I wandered round soaking wet for two days scouting for locations and potential shots before the weather turned to my advantage and transformed the gloomy industrious city into the more picturesque Italian town I was looking for.
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1/125 second, f16 to f22, ISO200 20mm
2848 x 4288 pixels.
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Storm clouds over Wall Street, New York
Dark clouds gathering over the iconic skyline of Lower Manhattan and New York Harbor, New York, USA. Image © fotoVoyager 2009.
A little bit late to be posting this one here, since the coming storm has developed into a typhoon of financial confusion and money chucking lunacy, but I thought I’d stick it up. This cityscape really misses the iconic towers of the World Trade Center, I’m looking forward to seeing what goes up in its stead when they’ve finished arguing about it. If anywhere needs the boost of some world class architecture it’s downtown New York right now.
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1/500 second, f5, ISO200 50mm
10763 x 3000 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
Millenium Bridge, River Thames, London, UK
Vertical panorama underneath the Millenium Bridge over the River Thames from the Tate Modern to the City. Image © fotoVoyager 2009.
Along the Thames in central London, now and again you can get down onto the narrow shingle shore that’s revealed when the tide’s low. There’s even a bit of sandy beach beside the South Bank, but you wouldn’t want to sunbathe there. The river is surprisingly clean these days, though because it’s a tidal estuary by the time it reaches the City it’s not exactly a stream of Evian. For centuries is was a stinking cesspool of pollution, whose proximity to those in power eventually caused them to fund the construction of a proper sewage and waste treatment network. Those holes in the road you see everywhere around the city? They’re probably working to replace this ageing Victorian network to cope with the billions of litres of effluent we flush away each day.
The slender lines and graceful struts of the Millenium Bridge were built across the river from the south bank to the City of London in 2000, only to be closed two days later because of pedestrian stomping induced resonance that gave it the nickname ‘the Wobbly Bridge’. The engineers fixed it though, and you can look at the drawings of the bridge and it’s dampening mechanisms here. You get a terrific view along it to the newly renovated facade of St. Paul’s Cathedral and if you want a higher view, sneak onto the balcony of the cafe on the upper floors of the Tate Modern behind.
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1/200 second, f11, ISO200 20mm
3256 x 6650 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
Blue dusk, golden tower riverbank Seville, Spain
The ancient battlements of the Torre del Oro overlooking the boats and banks of the Río Guadalquivir and Puente de Isabel II, Seville. Image © fotoVoyager 2009.
First of all, let’s get the subject information out of the way. The 13th Century tower was built for the Almohads, Moorish rulers of most of Spain (which they called Al Andalus, leaving us with Andalusia of which Seville is the capital) to control traffic on the river. Today, the tourist cruisers ply their trade up and down the river from here and the rowing clubs sweep their sleek craft under the wrought iron arches of the Isabel II Bridge connecting El Arenal to Triana. In the distant you can see the squat form of the Edificio Torre Triana, one of the few used remnants of Expo ‘92; the site seems deserted and crumbling now, weeds taking over the pavilions and pavements.
Now that’s done we can have a look at why this is a useful stock photo. I’d be the first to admit that this image isn’t the most innovative or radical photo of Seville you could take, but that’s not really what this type of shot trying to do. Designers who buy stock want an image to do a few simple things – make their job easier and their layout look good. A useful library picture is one that tells a story to enhance the mood or message the designer is trying to get across. Here we’ve got strong colors, a tranquil ambience and an easily recognisable location if the message is about Seville. The relatively large area of empty space isn’t a bad thing for a graphic artist, it’s an opportunity to add type or graphics on an evenly colored background. Give designers a helping hand and they’ll appreciate your efforts; clip the top off a model’s head and they’ll pass your work by.
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1 second, f8, ISO200 50mm
12455 x 4000 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
Lights of LA
Rivers of moving light snaking though city block after city block as this Californian mega-city sprawls off to the distant horizon. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
Ah, LA… the glamour, the gossip, parties and film premieres, pop stars, exclusive boutiques and Playboy Mansion™. I, of course, see none of this. No it’s cheap motels and fast food for me, since all costs come out of my bottom line. However, there is a certain energy, an undeniable, unstoppable momentum to the place that’s infectious. All human life is here, from suburban soccer moms to sparkling starlets with chihuahuas, angry young men on corners to blissed out baby boomers dawdling in convertibles down the palm fringed avenues. You can see it all from up here, as the never ending atoms of humanity jostle and joust as far as the eye can see. It’s not a late night town though – most of them will be home by eleven, ready to wrestle with the American dream for a new chance on a new day.
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15 seconds, f16, ISO200 85mm
9995 x 1694 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
Light and shadows in the museum, Berlin
Sunlight reflecting off the marble floor of the Neue Nationalgalerie in the Kulturforum, Berlin. Image © fotoVoyager 2009.
Although this glass walled atrium is ‘only’ the lobby of Berlin’s gallery of modern art it’s easily the most impressive space in the complex, if not in the whole of the Kulturforum, cultural epicentre of Germany’s renewed capital city. Mies van der Rohe created a dramatic yet simple layer that’s full of still light perfectly setting the scene for the world class collection underneath. They keep the glass nice and clean too – the window cleaners do a typically German high quality job.
I really like Berlin, but it took me a couple of days to realise what it was that made it feel a bit different from other European capitals. There’s just not that many people around. Without exception, Euro capitals are bustling, noisy, crowded places; try taking more that three steps in a straight line down Oxford Street or the Avenue des Champs-Élysées without getting bumped into. Sure, you see crowds occasionally, it’s not a ghost town. I was there during the European Cup and it was decidedly punchy on the U-Bahn and riotously exuberant around Zoo Station after Germany beat Turkey in the semi-finals. But there’s a strange tranquility to this city when you’re used to bumper to bumper traffic and teeming masses of humanity. Take this image, looking over the Sony Centre in Potsdamer Platz, the modern business district beside the Tiergarten:
This aerial panorama was shot at 2 o’clock in the afternoon (not the ideal time for a great shot, I’ll admit, but if I’m working, I’m working, if you know what I mean). That’s a three lane highway right in the centre of a capital city – with no cars on it! Where is everybody? Gives you a good idea of the scale of the leafy oasis that is the Tiergarten too, the peaceful green lungs of the city.
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Top image: 1/125, f5, ISO200 20mm 6658 × 3000 pixels.
Bottom image: 1/125, f16, ISO200 50mm 9999 x 4206 pixels.
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Plaza de Toros de las Ventas, Madrid, Spain
Storm clouds and sunlight over the ornate arcades of Las Ventas bullring in the Salamanca district of Madrid, Spain. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
Like so many Spanish and Latin American bullrings, Espeliú’s Las Ventas is a riot of geometric brickwork, tiles, horseshoe arcades and Islamic moorish influences in the Neo-Mudéjar style. Sitting in a fairly unprepossessing neighbourhood, the striking arches and wonderfully colourful illustrated fight posters that are hung around the outside make a visit very enticing even if you don’t quite have a native’s strong stomach for traditional blood sports. Next time I’m there on a Sunday, I’m going; Hemingway’s got nothing on me.
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1/125, f9, ISO200 20mm
6300 × 2684 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
Empire cloudscape, New York
White cumulus cloud in deep blue skies speared by the antenna array of the Empire State Building in Midtown Manhattan, New York. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
Waiting, waiting, waiting. That’s what you do if you want the shot. The sun to come out, the rain to clear, the Australian tourist to get of the way. Or the cloud you can see coming to drift slowly, oh so very slowly, into position front and centre over the needle of the most iconic building in the Americas. Great stuff, well worth 20 minutes jostling to keep position. One of the most spectacular views in any city, anywhere on the globe.
Ever wondered why the really big skyscrapers are crowded around Midtown and then don’t rise up again until the Financial district? Me neither until the disparity was pointed out to me by one of my friends, then you wonder why, so I looked into it. Unsurprisingly (and reassuringly if you’re stood on the top of one like this) skyscrapers need to be built on solid bedrock and the three types of strata that make up Manhattan island take a big dip somewhere around 42nd Street and don’t come up for air until Washington Square and the glacial rubble that makes up the surface between these areas isn’t solid enough to raise these cathedrals to commerce. The bedrock can be seen in a few places, including this eruption of Manhattan Schist in Central Park:
It was only when I was researching the geology of New York (when I say ‘researching’ like I know what I’m doing, I of course mean noodling through Wikipedia during my morning coffee break) that I realised I had a shot that illustrated the story so well. How fortuitous. Anyway for those of you with longer attention spans, there’s much more about this subject here.
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Top: 1/160, f8, ISO200 20mm 5500 x 3067 pixels.
Bottom: 1/125, f6.3 28mm 9999 x 3315 pixels.
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Blackpool Tower, Lancashire, UK
Boy racing horse drawn chariot across the beach in front of Blackpool Tower, Lancashire, UK. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
Despite the rain, the chip bag strewn pavements and the frankly worrying amount of rust visible when you get to the top of the Tower, there’s an undeniable charm to this windswept resort on the Irish Sea. Beneath the stocky iron lattice is the Tower Ballroom where you can escape from inclement weather to sip tea and eat home made cake served by waitresses in Edwardian aprons whilst you watch (mostly) elderly couples glide across the 14,000 square foot dance floor with a grace few half their age could muster. It’s a slightly surreal but relaxing way to spend an afternoon.
You would never guess the vast ornate, gilded interior that hides behind the typical English seafront of cheap cafes, amusement arcades and sticky-floored bars. Through the ballroom stage with its soft focus Italianate trompe l’oeil backdrop rises an ice cream Wurlitzer played by a spangle-jacketed organist smiling over his shoulder, whom you could just about mistake for Liberace if you squint. Fantastic. I also enjoyed the clattery ghost train in the nearby arcade but took fright at the thought of spending the night in the Tower Lounge with 1400 stag and hen party revellers. That’s 50 gallons of vomit on the pavement at 2am guaranteed. But the Lounge isn’t the biggest venue by far; the Syndicate behind the Winter Gardens holds 5000. You’d never find your mates again after you’d fought your way to the bathroom.
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1/250, f4.8, ISO200 28mm
1894 × 2997 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
Gondola workshop, Venice, Italy
The traditional squero of the Domenico Tramontin e Figli boat builders in the Dorsoduro district of Venice. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
Often called the Squero di San Trovaso after the white marble church with leaning campanile behind it, this working boatyard has become a tourist attraction in its own right. One of just three left in Venice, this family company still manufactures and repairs gondolas and other wooden boats in the same way as they have since 1884. As every guide book will tell you, the wooden Alpine chalet style decorations are indicative of the original craftsmen’s Dolomite roots (there were few carpenters in Venice – no trees, see?) though Domenico Tramontin learnt his trade at the Squero Casal dei Servi in Cannaregio, now home to the Arzaná society dedicated to the preservation of local nautical history and customs.
From across the Rio della San Trovaso you can watch these skilled men (women? Doing a traditional job in a family firm? This is Italy, you’ll be lucky) patiently maintaining and re-caulking gondolas. Presumably they need a regular 5000 nautical mile service. It looks like steady and satisfying work; there’s not many 21st Century jobs where you can watch the fruit of your labours bob past and say ‘I made that’. Need a new gondola? Yours for €20,000 – a snip for the 45 days of craftsmanship that goes into making one I’d say.
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1/125, f13, ISO200 28mm
9999 x 3337 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
Carousel and Basilique du Sacré-Coeur, Paris
Long exposure of illuminated fairground ride at the base of the butte Montmartre overlooked by the iconic white Byzantine domes of the Sacré-Coeur basilica against a deep blue dusk sky. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
Each year between Christmas and New Year the Paris Mairie that dishes out the licences for the rides that dot central Paris decrees that they should be free for the use of citizens and visitors alike. So whilst the kids rode this beautifully painted Belle Epoque double decker carousel (not that you can tell that from this long exposure, I’ll grant you) again and again, I blew on my fingers so I could take a few shots. Brrr, it’s cold in Paris in winter.
Since we were staying in Montmartre, I decided that I’d like to see the café where Audrey Tautou works as a waitress in Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain so we walked there. Unfortunately, my chosen route took us directly past the more exotic offerings of Pigalle and the children’s eyes nearly popped out of their heads. I declined to answer any and all questions generated by these tantalising sights, no doubt leaving them scarred for life. C’est la vie…
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6 seconds, f16, ISO200 28mm
5104 x 2012 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
p.s. If Amélie is the only Jeunet movie you’ve seen, you should try Delicatessen, also starring the amazing rubber chops of Dominique Pinon; what an actor – what a face!
Ponte Sant’ Angelo, River Tiber, Rome
Bernini’s marble angels on the Ponte Sant’ Angelo reflecting in the Tiber as if flows past the Castel Sant’ Angelo in the Prati district of Italy’s beautiful capital city. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
Even for a European used to being surrounded by historical landmarks, Rome is jaw-droppingly ancient. Everywhere you go, the place is littered iconic sites. I took a break, plonked my kit down, then realised I was sitting on a 2000 year old section of column, apparently just left lying around. It’s not that the local conservators don’t look after it, there’s just so much of it.
This picture is a good illustration of how this charming, crowded city is overflowing with cultural monuments. The white marble angels were planned by the late Renaissance artist Bernini in 1669 to decorate the bridge built in 134. Yes, that’s AD134. Through the arches you can see the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica created by Michelangelo, and the bridge itself spans the Tiber to the Roman Emperor Hadrian’s mausoleum that was later converted to Castel Sant’ Angelo fortress from whose terrace Puccini’s operatic heroine throws herself to her death in Tosca. See what I mean? The whole place is an order of magnitude older and more magnificent that most other European cities. I’m willing to bet there’s more scooters per head of population than anywhere outside Asia too. Don’t bother trying to drive in it, the traffic’s crazy.
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1/125 second, f13, ISO200 28mm
8682 x 3032 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
Parliament Square, Westminster, London
Big blue summer skies and white fluffy clouds floating over London’s most famous landmark, the Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
It’s big, it’s gothic, it’s iconic. Every stock photographer in town has many shots of it and the red telephone box outside HM Treasury in Great George St. with Big Ben behind it (gotta cram as many landmarks into the shot as possible: get a red double decker bus with a mohicaned punk passenger going past at the same time and you’ve got a winner!).
Amazingly for such a famous location, Parliament Square itself is surprisingly difficult to get onto, marooned as it is in a constant river of fast traffic with drivers who will happily mow you down then get out and curse you in glottal-stopped expletives for making their journey too bumpy. It’s a shame, because it’s surrounded by incredible landmarks: the Treasury, the start of Whitehall, the strangely industrial chimneys of Portcullis House, Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, St Margaret’s and the Middlesex Guildhall. That’s three UNESCO World Heritage Sites in about as many hundred metres. Tick them off your list!
Arranged along the front of the lawn in the bottom of this image are the tents, placards and installations of Brian Haw’s peace camp. Its scruffy presence greatly annoys the great and the good who rule from over the road, so he receives plenty of support from his fellow countrymen, most of whom won’t miss an opportunity to take those with the power down a peg or two (see: the Daily Mail, Daily Express, Sun, Mirror etc. etc.). Most capital cities I’ve photographed have their eccentric characters; London’s most visible lives here.
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1/125 second, f11, ISO200 28mm
9999 x 3151 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
Weltzeituhr, tram and Fernsehtum, Berlin
The soaring spire of Fernesehturm overlooking a characteristic yellow tram and the modernist atomic sculpture of the Weltzeituhr in Alexanderplatz. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
Three iconic symbols of eastern Berlin in one compact image – how’s that for value for money?
Any European misguidedly feeling any pangs of ostalgie will certainly get their retro-modernist longings catered for in Alexanderplatz. The huge square in the heart of old East Berlin has some terrific concrete brutalist architecture as well as the iconic World Time Clock constructed by Eric John in 1969 that shows the time in cities around the world (as the name suggests, natch) with a distinctly communist bias. The landmark is now a popular meeting place for locals and indeed I did have to wait 20 minutes for a bunch of Berliners to bugger off before I could take this picture.
Towering above the square and the curved roof of the eponymous railway station is the monumental Fernesehturm (television tower) space needle with its spherical observation deck. You get a terrific view over the whole of Berlin and the surrounding countryside from the top, though the glass has a polarising tint that ruins photos through it – you have been warned! The entrance is on the northern side, not through the TV studio that overlooks the fountains below it, as I discovered with my inimitable German as they pushed me back out the door…
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1/125 second, f14, ISO200 20mm
2848 x 4288 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
Queensboro Bridge and East River, Manhattan
The intricate suspension lattice of the Queensboro Bridge and red cabin of the aerial tramway from the Upper East Side over the East River to Roosevelt Island. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
The Roosevelt Island aerial tramway is a great New York institution and the only commuter cable car in the USA according to Wikipedia (which as we all know is a completely accurate and unbiased source of information). The few times I’ve ridden it across the East River is has seemed to carry only residents, sporty types playing tennis on the island’s courts or patients and their carers to-ing and fro-ing from the hospital beside the cable car station.
As the 2nd Avenue station is just a couple of blocks behind Bloomingdale’s, I not sure why this remarkable public transport system ($2 a ride, just like the subway and you can use the same Metrocard) isn’t stuffed with tourists taking the exciting ride over the waters of the East River to get a great view back from the island’s western promenade. From the UN Building and the the skyscrapers of Midtown along FDR Drive to the exclusive apartment blocks of the Upper East Side, it must be one of the world’s most iconic panoramas. The island is a tranquil residential oasis with little or no traffic compared to the gridlock on the other side.
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1/160 second, f8, ISO200 20mm
10747 x 4000 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.
Campo Arsenale, Venice
The crumbling stucco of traditional Venetian apartment blocks and townhouses reflecting in the still waters of the Rio dell’ Arsenale in the beautiful Castello district of Venice, Italy. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
This was taken early in the morning of my third day in Venice, the previous two being horribley rainy and overcast as is so often the case outside the summer tourist season. This end of the main island sees far fewer visitors even though it’s just a short walk down the Riva degli Schiavoni embankment from the Piazza San Marco and Palazzo Ducale. As I wondered (lost, as usual) among the narrow alleys and though deserted campos I heard a child practising piano beautifully despite being admonished by its ferocious sounding teacher.
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1/125 second, f10, ISO200 20mm
9999 x 3954 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.