Night Tyne Photography

As promised, a couple of photographs from my brief outing to Newcastle Quayside. Following on from a visit to the Angel Of The North (Last blog entry), I headed over to the Quayside to try out my 24-105mm lens, which I hadn't tested on the Quayside to date, so I was itching to give it a first run out at this location, albeit a very brief one. It was literally a five minute stop, as I parked up in the Fish Market Car Park, next to the Swing Bridge, before setting up my gear and shooting down the river, towards the Tyne Bridge, Millennium Bridge & Baltic Arts Centre. It was getting late, so I made sharp and ran off two exposures, which were around the 5 second mark. There was cloud above, which is always a good addition to a night-time shot, as opposed to a flat sky with little or no detail in it. There was many a Geordie reveller on the Quayside, dodging from pub to pub, and there's plenty of choice in that department. It was rowdy, to say the least. Aye, been there...done that. Nowadays I'm focusing on Rivers and Bridges instead of getting rat-arsed and staggering home with a dirty kebab in my hands. Ahhh, those were the days!

But more of that another time. Here are the shots I took, only two, but very similar, although one is cropped to give an almost panoramic feel to it. Turns out the L-Series glass was more than capable...
CLICK TO ENLARGE
Speak soon.
AC

Olympics 2012

Huge Olympic rings were lowered on to the Tyne Bridge recently as the North East prepared to welcome the Olympic Flame to the region. Constructed from aluminium, the massive overlapping circles measure 25m wide and 12m high, making them the largest set of metal Olympic Rings in the UK. St James’ Park, Newcastle played host to the London 2012 Olympic Football tournament where six matches were played at the stadium, including Brazil, tournament favourites to lift the gold medal in the men's football. Not wanting to miss the opportunity, I got my arse down there last week to photograph the Tyne Bridge before the Olympics finished and the rings were removed. I had hoped for a colourful sky to finish my photo's off nicely, but I wasn't in luck. After sunset, what little colour there was quickly burned out, leaving a rather flat backdrop, but what can ya do. I might persuade myself to return to the Forbidden City again, before the rings are ditched, in the hope of pulling in some better shots. I'll keep you posted on that one.

In the meantime, here are three shots for ya. There's a panoramic effort, along with a full shot of the Tyne Bride, plus a closer abstract version. Not much else to add to this swift blog entry, folks. I'm off to bed now - beauty sleep required. Without further ado...

Ash