Rainy Walk in London

It looked as if the rain was easing as we pulled into King's Cross, but as I left the station the heavens opened and continues to pour for the walk from King's Cross to St. Paul's. First image out of sequence but thought it would make a great 'give it a caption' image! 

 

Playing With Colour Interference and Transmission

1. The colours seen in a soap bubble arise from interference of light reflecting off the front and back surfaces of the thin soap film. Depending on the thickness of the film of soap, different colours interfere constructively and destructively.

2. Dichroic cubes have several surfaces that transmit light of a certain waveband and reflect its complement. They have dielectric coatings that result in a steep transition between the region of transmission and reflection, which is sensitive to the angle of view - hence these clear cubes appear multicolour viewed with a white light source

3. A CD is made up of thousands of pits arranged in the form of spiral tracks. When visible light is incident on the pits, each pit diffracts light in all directions. They act as a diffraction grating separating a light into its constituents forming rainbow colours.  The colours that overlap are seen brighter than the colours that cancel each other.

Double Vision in Coal Drops and Granary Square

 In the 1850s, wagons from northern England dropped eight million tonnes of coal every year, to be loaded on to horse-drawn carts and carried across London to power the city. Now after a history of increasing decay, architect Thomas Heatherwick has transformed the sheds into a shopping and cultural centre by linking the two long Victorian brick and cast-iron sheds with two "kissing" roofs that just seem to touch. The roof area is not yet open but will give great views over London. I played around with double exposure and window reflections. I also took sequences of students arriving at St Martin's College and stacked these.

 

Shadowlands: Kings Cross London

King's Cross area (Granary Square and the new Coaldrop Yard development) looked stunning in the bright sunlight on Friday morning after our night in the Travelodge - lots of shadows and reflected light to play with.

The Francis Crick Institute

The Francis Crick Institute is located opposite St Pancras and consists of four reinforced concrete blocks up to eight storeys high plus four basement levels. The building incorporates a combined heat and power plant and solar panels to provide low-carbon onsite power.  A third of the building is below ground to reduce its visible size and provide protection to sensitive scientific equipment.The Institute also includes a public exhibition space with small cafe; the present exhibition is Deconstructing Patterns - involving light and sound. ‘Paradigm’, a 14-metre high sculpture made of weathered steel and designed by the British artist Conrad Shawcross,  is one of the largest public sculptures in London.

Level of Study in the British Library

The British Library was busier than I'd seen it before with people working in every spare area making intriguing patterns.