Helen Stephenson's Monument Pictures

These opening two pictures were taken on an after-work evening excursion. I hadn't had my digital SLR for very long at the time, and I left the white balance in auto, which resulted in the whole of the Monument being rendered a gold colour by the lighting being used. I took a lot of exposures that evening as I used a certain amount of trial and error to get a reasonable exposure. I was using my old manual Tamron 85-210 lens and the camera will only calculate exposures up to 1 second with that lens, and as I wanted longer exposures, I had to do a certain amount of mental arithmetic and just experiment to get it right.

This picture puts The Monument into the context of its surroundings. It is taller than nearby buildings, but doesn't tower over them as it would have done in the 1670s when it was constructed.

These daytime pictures show the viewing platform, which was well populated during these weekend pictures, which were actually taken during London Open House Weekend.

This picture of the top of The Monument and its viewing platform was taken on the same day, but it seems that the platform had emptied when I took this shot.

I thought that these were gorgeous daytime shots of The Monument. There are people back on that platform. I have climbed it, but I think I was in my late twenties at the time and rather fitter than I am in the 21st Century!

We're back to after work evening pictures here. I've changed the white balance between the first and second pictures, and I think that I've got it about right in the second and third pictures. I did like the mauve in the sky in the first picture, though, so I've included that as well.

These pictures were taken on the way home from work on one of the few days in 2007 when going to work meant travelling up to The City. The shake reduction feature of the Pentax K10D appears to have worked here, as I've got one of the best pictures I've ever taken of the top of The Monument without resorting to a tripod.