What are the best black and white London prints for a home office?
Having lived in London for most of my career, taking fine art city landscapes to sell in my gallery, I’ve spent many hours standing on freezing bridges to capture the right light and composition. I’ve also always enjoyed making prints that celebrate the architecture of a bridge and the way it frames the city. One of the best bridges I’ve seen sits in Ironbridge, near Telford in Shropshire, and its historic ironwork never fails to inspire a strong print.
Rather than fill this post with dozens of bridge prints, I’ve kept it simple and stuck to some of my favourite black and white images. Black and white really suits bridge photography, bringing out the structure and mood. It would have been very easy to take a postcard-style shot of the Ironbridge above, but it looks far better when cropped in close.
The prints above are of the Albert bridge in London and the Charles bridge in Prague. Both of these were taken on a tripod using my favourite Ilford 400 ISO film on my medium format Bronica ETRsi camera. I love the smooth greys you get on this film and the resulting prints enlarge so beautifully. Black and white works well for bridges. You can capture the starkness of the architecture if you get in close and if the sky is bright you can get great silhouettes. You can see this print of Albert Bridge in London here. And you can also see The Charles bridge is in the Black and white Prints of Prague here.
Panoramics are a great shape for bridges. I love the symmetry on the print above. The Millennium Bridge connects St. Paul’s with Tate Modern on London’s South Bank. I’ve also made a print capturing the movement of the tourists crossing the bridge in the evening with the city lights in behind. You can see this print in the London panoramics gallery here.
Above the two prints at the top are of Richmond bridge and Chelsea bridge in London. The two prints at the bottom are of The English bridge in Shrewsbury. The river floods regularly in Shrewsbury and the same view can look quite different when river fills up. You can see the two London bridges in the London black and white galleries here and you can see all of my Shrewsbury black and white prints here.