Thursday 15 August 2013

Day 227 : view from half way up

The Shard (or Shard of Glass) does rather dominate the London skyline, well it is the tallest building in the European Union. It was the tallest building in Europe briefly, but Moscow’s Mercury City Tower surpassed it on completion. There’s talk the French are planning to steal the top spot, they are hoping the Hermitage Plaza will have them soaring up the tallest building charts in 2017.

I've been wanting to visit, and see the view, takes some photographs but I haven't had the chance yet. However tonight I'm booked into the Aqua Shard restaurant with the fabulous T and can get to the see the view at least from nearly half way up. And despite the wonderful (and overdue) company, the delicious (and expensive) food the view is transfixing me. We haven't secured a window table but the sunsetting over London is reflective in the mirrored columns and my shutter finger is twitching in an alarming way.

I manage to excuse myself, sneak behind a pillar and grab a few shots of the sunset over the London Eye, the railway tracks and all the buildings below. The light us really tricky but funnily enough I don't have my tripod and my ND grads with me. Also I'm having to fight the reflections from the lights in the restaurant.

After we finish our wonderful meal, the fabulous T bids her farewell and I take a few more shots. I have to contort myself to dodge those pesky reflections but I manage to get a nice picture of the Southwark Bridge in its red phase and St Paul's glowing in the twilight. Maybe next time I’ll go to the top of this pointy building and check out the broken glass effect for myself.

 

No comments:

Post a Comment