Sidmouth Photographic Club

Sunshine, warmth, tea and cake – and some photography too ...

The fates smiled on us with a lovely warm day for our third trip to London this year and on this occasion there were ten of us. The train to Waterloo was on-time which these days is not a given, so we were off to a good start!

First stop was Battersea Power Station and the newly developed area around it, which has a wealth of photographic opportunities both inside and outside as well as offering the usual array of up market retail outlets which not everyone was able to resist! Here was the realm of street and architectural photography and it did not disappoint.

We spent a couple of hours here and finished up eating our lunch by the riverside in the park. By now it was properly warm and sunny.

Next up was the (relatively) new US Embassy with its garden, moat and interesting cladding on its façade; nearby we could see people swimming in the sky high glass bottomed swimming pool – more photo ops!

Then it was onto the riverside walk, over Vauxhall Bridge doffing our hats to the spooks in their lair as we passed by, along Millbank and finally some welcome shade, tea and cake in the Tate Britain. Here we were treated to the spectacular black and white tiled Caruso St John spiral staircase added in 2013 as part of a major refurbishment.

The final leg of our walk took us through Parliament Square and up Whitehall. A quick peak through the gates at Downing Street revealed absolutely nothing!

The barricades round Nelson’s column and the fountains were a big disappointment as was the lack of water in the fountains; to add insult to injury the whole of the façade of the National Gallery was under scaffolding and shrouds. There were still a lot of people making the best of it, but it was not what we had expected.

We rounded off the day with a very pleasant meal at Cote Brasserie by the Royal Festival Hall, then a short hop to Waterloo and a belated group photo, the interminable train journey back to Honiton and home to Sidmouth back nicely before midnight. Everyone seemed to have had a good time, and the weather was perfect.