Commercial Road London

  We mainly used the buses to travel in and out of central London from Beckton as our Cambridgeshire bus passes give us free travel. The route included driving along Commercial Road with its mix of different era architecture and cultures. We spent yesterday walking and exploring its many interesting buildings etc. Commercial Road starts at Whitechapel High Street, heads east, crossing the Limehouse Basin, the Regents Canal and the Limehouse Cut and ends in the East India Dock Road continuing to the left and West India Dock Road to the right. It was constructed in 1802–1806 to link the West India and East India Docks to the City of London. It was fully populated with houses at this time (some still stand) but with the arrival of the railway, factories also sprung up and the area became overcrowded and polluted. WWII bombing destroyed a lot of buildings, replaced by community housing in the City of London plan. 

Battersea Walk

After a visit to the Tate Britain Museum, we walked along to the Battersea Power Station now completed as a huge shopping centre. I had fun photographing the attractive yellow and orange barges with slow shutterspeed and multiple exposures. (All images are more or less straight from camera as I don't have editing software with me - looking forward to doing some adjustments when home!)

Post-Christmas Break, Beckton

 For the past few years we have been going away at or just after Christmas with Jonathan and Sue most recent years to East London. This year they are cat sitting in North London so we are meeting them in London some days but staying on our own in Beckton (North Woolwich). We arrived mid afternoon and walked down to the Albert Dock now occupied by East London University. No sunset but the lights and lit buildings gave good colours to play with.

Duxford Concorde Evening Visit

Yesterday evening, I accompanied Phil to Duxford where he was helping entertain a corporate group from Rolls Royce with a Concorde Nose Droop. Here he is in the First Officer seat operating the controls with 'Captain' Simon. After the demonstration, they turned off the main lighting giving great photographic opportunities. The group had their dinner under the wings of the various central aeroplanes such as the Sunderland. 

CCC Outing to Eddington, Cambridge

Some of the newer (and more established!!) members of Cambridge Camera Club explored the West side of Cambridge yesterday including Eddington which is a new sustainable development to the west of Cambridge that normally is only noticed when using the Madingley Park and Ride or visiting Sainsbury's. 

The architecture from a distance is very uniform and potentially very uninteresting to photograph but closer it becomes apparent that a lot of effort has gone into giving each building individuality - for instance the 'randomly' staggered windows in the first image and the different window shapes and sizes in the second. I did not spend as long as I intended on the buildings as we decided to head to the lake while the light was good. The meshwork tower near the lake in the bright sunlight was an intriguing subject  (Sony RX100 converted to 720nm infrared).