This was a shared evening with our colleagues of Sheffield Photographic Society projected into the Academy by Zoom.
Peter describes himself as a 'very keen urban nightscape photographer' and the tone and delivery of his presentation certainly bore out this enthusiasm and commitment to night-time image capture.
Peter began with a short history of photography beginning in the nineteenth century up to the present moment and he tied this history into the lives of his family in Germany from his Great Grandparents through to himself today. He described his kit of tripos, camera and lenses and how he bracketed shots and made much use of luminosity masks in Photoshop.
After this technical information he took us on a tour of London. Beginning with the Pool of London. He said that September to April was the best period to take these kinds of images and he explained how he used Google Street View not only to give him a taste of viewpoints but also as a way of choosing safe places to be.
We saw stunning night -time views of Tower Bridge, the Shard, the Tower of London and St. Paul's Cathedral before he ushered us down to the West End. His top tips were to drive to Mile End Road, station car park and use public transport from then on, and making sure that the Thames was at slack water with no craft spoiling the reflections.
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