England swings like a pendulum do
Bobbies on bicycles, two by two
Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben
The rosy red cheeks of the little children….

Well, we finally arrived in London! Everywhere the sights and sounds reminded us of the old Roger Miller song.

The busses were humming and the taxis flying and we had perfect weather (for people) and four-days to get as many shots as we could without slowing us down.

Most of the time the shooting-conditions were typical travel-weather contrasty with many shots being taken in midday sun.

We set our Nikon D-200 to shoot as fast a shutter speed as possible, while keeping the ISO down as low as practical. Central-weighted metering made sure our main-subject would be properly exposed.

This demands that you always know where your exposure-indicators are at so as to not point them in the wrong area and risk a poor exposure!

Like a travel poster, all the London icons roll out in front of your eyes. Walking along the Thames river for the first time reveals all the treasures only seen in Bond films.

Big Ben is very cool of course (as is the ringing on the hour) as the jets fly overhead on their way to Heathrow.

The double-decker busses are everywhere in a sea of red…

the London Eye gives you a helicopter’s-eye-view of the Thames.

Icons also include the Playhouse…

and London’s many Bridges.

The Tower-Bridge (often times mistakenly called “London Bridge” is seen here with the HMS Belfast docked nearby.

Always impressive (and well guarded) is Buckingham Palace.

One good museum to check out that’s a little off the beaten-path is the very well done Imperial War Museum.

Here you’ll see very extensive displays of all the conflicts that have involved Great Britain, with a lot of information on the 2 World Wars (they also helped produce the awesome BBC Series “World at War”).

Speaking of World War II, back in the city is St. Paul’s Cathedral which survived the London Blitz as the Nazis pounded all of the surrounding London neighborhoods into rubble.

The city is a very bustling place and there’s never much pause during the day.

The Burberry store was a very busy place attracting all the fashion-afficianados.

The architectural style runs the gamut and includes the glass-building the locals call “the Gherkin” because of it’s pickle shape! It houses an insurance company and the shape allows for column-free interiors.

Tourists (like us!) were everywhere…

<> …and the Metro and the trains make getting around very easy, just remember to “Mind the Gap”!

Cruisin by the Home Office, which is currently the British equivalent of our Homeland Security .

Lunchtime brings out the Brits in droves, some finding a nice out of the way place to eat…

other in the streetside diners trying to recall amourous days gone by (unsuccessfully I’d imagine….).

Speaking of which, check out this rolling bed and the couple on top…

You can literally see evrything in London in a very short timespan,

even things that’ll make your hair stand on end.

Lastly, the Tower of London is a very cool tour, led by your very own personal BeefEater.

They’ll tell you the very interesting history of the place including…

The Bloody Tower…

Traitor’s gate…

The chopping block for clean removal of any extra-heads you might have around…

we also spied a Executioner-in-training in case the beheading practice makes a comeback.

The buildings are all in pristine shape and have very interesting histories…

“Where’d you get those cocoanuts?”

The Crown-Jewels were on display and were very impressive.

They kept you on a moving platform to dissuade you from picking any of them up (no photos allowed of course).

They were well-guarded, as was the entire facility…

<>We were lucky enough to meet some tourists from Washington State who we able to get us into the limited-attentance locking-ceremony at 10:30pm. It was very cool, but alas, no photography allowed,as the sentries locked up the Tower of London as they do every night.

As is the historical-custom, someone was always trying to get the guards to crack a smile…

All in all, a very photogenic-city that is a lot of fun to see and to photograph, you could probably stay a year or two and never run out of photo-ops!

all pictures taken with a Nikon D-200, Tamron 18-250mm Zoom lens, SanDisk memory cards (lots).

If you need a do it all travel lens, the Tamron 18-250mm gives you extrodinary range without having to change lenses. Although not a Image-stabilized lens, it was sharp with great saturation and color, very surprising for a lens of this focal-range. Check it out!