It’s my first morning in London and the woman on television is giving the weather report: “London will be rather dull today.” That was it: no temperature, no wind chill, just “dull.” Dull is the perfect word to describe London weather in winter, but if you live in Chicago, when it’s January and minus 16 degrees with 4 feet of snow blocking your garage door, dull sounds great.
With four days to shoot this photo essay, I had planned a first-day excursion to the City of London, a small area encompassing the financial district and the famed Tower of London. Riding the “tube” (the subway), I saw a very distinguished man reading a morning paper featuring an enormous photo of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles. I politely asked to snap his picture, and he politely told me “no,” though he was willing to chat. After a while, he revealed why he preferred anonymity (he was a criminal courts judge) and made up for it by taking me on a tour of Bermondsey Street in a neighborhood I would never have seen otherwise.
Londoners, I was learning, are incredibly friendly. But in the land of the paparazzi, even ordinary people can be sensitive about being ambushed by strangers wielding cameras, so it’s best to ask.
As one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, London has a lot to offer the vacation photographer. In summer, you’ll have to fight big crowds and long lines. In winter, the place is yours, and you can spend time waiting for the right moment. The problem is that in this vast city, there’s much to explore and photograph besides the well-known sights, and it’s easy to get lost. But wherever you end up, there’s something wonderful to see, do and shoot.
One thing I discovered in my wanderings was that there are few empty spaces in London except for the magnificent parks, which the English are very proud of.
Hyde Park was my favorite, not only for its physical beauty but also because of a unique area called Speaker’s Corner. Every Sunday in a form of organized anarchy, people bring stepladders and milk crates to stand on and mouth off. Crowds gather to heckle, producing an interplay that is usually both good-natured and extremely entertaining. Photo opportunities are endless, but not for the faint of heart. I, for instance, became the subject of one man”s rhetoric. “Are you Monica?” he shouted at me from his milk crate. I denied it, and kept on shooting.
Since I was being paid to be a tourist, I figured I ought to be a diligent one and had lugged along my tripod for those difficult after-dark shots. It was worth it. Buildings that look merely impressive by day are dazzlingly illuminated at night, a time when London comes alive in a very special way.
In winter, night falls early, but it also ends late. So you can sleep in and still see some sights by day. Then you can enjoy the romance–with or without camera and tripod–of a beautiful urban landscape transformed by the night.
London by day. London by night.
“Dull” never looked better.
