As may have become obvious at this point, I live in London and I freaking adore this city. However, as you may have also been able to glean, I’m finishing up school soon and will be moving to university1 up in St Andrews2 and so I won’t get the chance to see this amazing place as much. As of such, I decided to take an afternoon away from my A-Level revision to go take photos in the City of London.

I usually like walking along the Southbank, but I always love it when I briefly end up in the centre of the city so today I took a tube to Tower Hill, with the aim of eventually probably going home via Bank3 or Cannon Street. For the Southbank walks, I used to have a pretty lovely route but (partially inspired by this MIT blog), I decided to just wander around and move in the direction that had the nicest photos. This ended up looking a little like this:

Strava workout map

To try to challenge myself and provide an artistic limitation, all of these photos were taken with a 50mm F1.8 lens, and I think they came out really well. It was certainly interesting getting all the angles, and there were more than a few occasions when I’d turn into a street, realise that I wanted a photo, and then immediately turned away to get a wider frame.

Streets & Parks & Other Randoms⌗

Whilst it can make it more difficult to remember where you are and navigate, one of my favourite parts of London is how much of a mess the street layouts are - you never know when you'll look to your left and see a little alley or shortcut next to a huge skyscraper.
One of the other things I love is the meshing of new & old.
I think here I must've missed the perfect time by single-digit milliseconds.

Bank⌗

If I recall correctly, this art installation is supposed to represent the ancient tributaries of the Thames, now all covered by my favourite concrete jungle.

Lloyds Building⌗

The Gherkin⌗

Tower Bridge area⌗

  1. After a brief gap year in Bangkok (!!!) (will send photos dw 🫡). ↩︎

  2. Yep, I got rejected from MIT 😥. ↩︎

  3. Ending up at one specific station seems incredibly specific, but Bank station is well-known among Londoners to be both labyrinthine and tardis-like in nature (that is, impossible to gain any sense of direction, and bigger on the inside than the outside) so that provided me with plenty of options. ↩︎