Evening photography at the Sky Garden

Last week, I paid another visit to London, taking my camera with me. Late in the afternoon, I went down to the Thames and captured long-exposure shots of the Shard from the north side of the river:

Then I paid my second visit to the Sky Garden (my first was earlier this year, when sunset was before 6pm). Here’s what it looks like inside:

Last time I was unable to take any photos across the city because of all the reflections from interior lights, but this time I came prepared.

As with virtually all indoor visitor attractions nowadays, tripods aren’t allowed, so I didn’t even bother getting mine out. Instead, I cradled my camera on scrunched-up bubble wrap atop a low window-sill. Exposure-bracketing combined with my camera’s self-timer yielded a series of shots that I could combine using Lightroom’s new HDR feature, and manual exposure-blending in Photoshop. Unfortunately, the skies failed to clear, as I had hoped. Even so, as dusk fell and the city lights came on, I secured a series of memorable shots westwards across the London skyline and, before I packed up to catch my train, eastwards towards Canary Wharf.