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I’ve been meaning to visit City Hall and take in the view from London’s Living Room for ages. Finally got around to doing it!

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Whilst driving back to London from Hereford a few days ago, I saw the most amazing sunset, with a range of colours from dark blue, through purple, red, orange to yellow. Just a shame that I had to enjoy it from the M5, rather than from a nice hilltop somewhere. Being a clear, bright and cold day today, I was hoping for something similar, but was somewhat disappointed. However, I had never taken in the view over the Thames from Richmond Hill before, so I wasn’t completely dissatisfied with my excursion this evening.

This 12-shot panorama was taken from the top of the Eiffel Tower, looking south-east.

Stitched from 7 photos, this panorama takes in a fair few of the sights of Paris: the River Seine, La Défense, the Eiffel Tower and the Basilica of the Sacré Coeur, to name a few. It’s well worth a climb up the 422 steps of Notre Dame to take in this view!

I have always thought that this view provides a nice contrast between the old and the new in London. I still haven’t found a good way of capturing it. I think that I’ll have to investigate going up Tower Bridge.

Full-width image…

On Sunday evening I travelled to the Pool of London, which is the stretch of the Thames between Tower Bridge and London Bridge. I was lured there (which is tricky, as I work there, and being lured to your workplace on a Sunday is tough) by the promise of some amazing lights at the Switched-On London festival.

I was, to be frank, completely underwhelmed. The website promised so much and yet failed to deliver. I should really have read the small print, which indicates that many of the designs on the website are just concepts.

Still, it wasn’t an entirely wasted trip – I came away with some shots. This is the first, a panoramic shot showing the whole Pool of London. Locals can try and spot the difference in the lighting…

Another one from the archives. Hand-stitching this was a pain in the backside, which is probably the reason it has taken me 10 months to get around to it!

This is just a crop of a large panoramic image (which is available here).

I’ve been meaning to process this one for a while, but my old PC wouldn’t have been able to handle it. The new iMac has outdone itself with this post-processing behemoth. 7 Raw images converted to 21 TIFFs (each 23MB in size), merged into 7 HDR TIFFS, combined into a panorama (by hand…).

Not sure about the black/white conversion though – I’d be interested to hear comments