Wednesday 10 July 2013

Twilight Hunter : London, Part I - Urban Spaces

Dear Twilight Hunter,

London has many faces, colours, tones, personalities - and yes, sometimes the dismal, foggy, grey one is the most accurate.  But when you put the great English city in the same box as the rest of Europe, London comes out as comparatively dry.  This is hard to believe, especially when you're in the thick of it, but it doesn't rain a lot.  It's just that the clouds which drop the rain over Wales or Dorset or Manchester like to hang out over the Thames for a while before moving on.

So even without the constant rain, you might think London amounts to bone-picking for the horizon connoisseur, who drums his thumbs while the sun rides behind impenetrable heavens.  But for some reason, or many, London is one of my favourite places in the world to watch the twilight, and I would hazard a guess that an average day gives an open sky for morning, or a breaking sky for evening, or both.  And, as we know, the best sunrises and sunsets are the ones with lots of different clouds, clear of the beams but part of the structure, repoussoirs of cumulus and cirrus and whatever the term is for the retreating fog, all vying for the best paint from the brushes of the sun.

And when it is just right in London, you don't just have the sky: you've got the red bricks, dirty stones, brown tenements and triumphal spires, a dramatic, struggling, chaotic yet organic 2,000 year-old hodge-podge of architectural and art history, a grand and mad but deceptively laconic river, and a people who appreciate more than most what it means when the sun finally peeks out and makes a show.

This is twilight (with some fireworks for added effect) in the urban spaces of London.

Temporary exhibit at the Barbican Centre
City of London 
Not a great shot, but I like what the flash does to the road sign
Cricklewood at dusk
Borough of Brent
Kilburn Station at dusk
Borough of Camden
Behind the National Theatre
Borough of Southwark
Fireworks at the London Eye, New Years 2010
Westminster Bridge
Fireworks at the London Eye, New Years 2010
Westminster Bridge
Fireworks at the London Eye, New Years 2010
Westminster Bridge
Fireworks at the London Eye, New Years 2010
Westminster Bridge
Fireworks at the London Eye, New Years 2010
Westminster Bridge
Fireworks at the London Eye, New Years 2010
Westminster Bridge
Fireworks at the London Eye, New Years 2010
Westminster Bridge
Dusk at Oxford Circus
City of Westminster
Somerset House
City of Westminster
Sunset
Millennium Bridge
Sunset at St. Paul's Cathedral
City of London
Sunset at St. Paul's Cathedral
City of London
Sunset at St. Paul's Cathedral
City of London
Sunset at St. Paul's Cathedral
City of London
Sunset at St. Paul's Cathedral
City of London
Sunset at St. Paul's Cathedral
City of London
Sunset in Cricklewood
Borough of Barnet
Sunset in Cricklewood
Borough of Barnet
Winter sunset at Goldsmiths College
Borough of Lewisham
Sunset in Greenwich
Royal Borough of Greenwich
Sunset in Greenwich
Royal Borough of Greenwich
Sunset on the Thames
London Bridge
Sunset on the Thames from the Temple District
City of London
Sunset on the Thames
Sunset on the Thames
Sunset on the Thames
Sunset behind Millenium Bridge
City of London
W for Waterstone's Bookshop on the Strand
City of Westminster
Westbourne Grove
Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea

Yours,

QM