10 Favorite Photos from 48 Hours in London
I did not know if I would even like visiting London, England. But I recently spent 48 hours in central London as part of a longer family trip through Europe — London was our first (and shortest) stop on our 11 day vacation. I came home with thousands of photographs from the trip and hundreds from London, and I challenged myself to come up with ten favorites. I am not ranking these in order of favorites, just the order that I took them in relation to our stay. Other than that, there is no particular theme here — just the shots that stood out to me. Please enjoy.
1. Facades of London | Somewhere on the M4 Expressway
Why I love this shot: We had just left Heathrow Airport and were driving to our hotel. I was on a high of being in London for the first time ever and marveling at how strange it was to be on the left side, “wrong side” of the road. Our driver was providing wonderful commentary on everything from British history to the cost of gas (petrol) compared to the United States. Sitting in the back seat with my Canon G7X Mark III, I was filming video clips and taking photos.
In this image my eye first notices the beautiful buildings and huge glass panels. Our driver was explaining that they were about 400 years old and the historical building codes allow restoration, but the facade cannot be changed. Then you notice a woman walking and talking on her phone. And as your eyes move from the background to the foreground you realize that the cars are indeed driving on the lefthand side of the road and then notice that there is no one seated in the front left part of the red Porsche.
Camera Settings: ISO 400, f/2.8, 1/160 | Shot on Canon G7X Mark III
2. The King’s Guards | Buckingham Palace Gate
Why I love this shot: We arrived in London around 7am on a Wednesday morning, fought through the traffic rush, checked into our hotel, changed clothes in the lobby because our room was not available, and rushed out to be tourists. Lucky for us, we stayed at the Rubens Hotel. A gorgeous central London hotel and a five minute walk to Buckingham Palace. I was looking for any iconic “Hey I’m in London” photo and I feel like I got one here of The King’s Guards. The raw file was a little crooked and cool. For the edit, I made it vertical and framed the guards towards the bottom of the photograph to help show how big the palace is. I also warmed up the photo to help reflect how hot it was during a June heatwave.
Camera Settings: ISO 160, f/2.8, 1/2000 | Shot on Canon G7X Mark III. A photographer might look at these settings and wonder why f/2.8 and why the fast shutter because the guards were not moving? The G7X is either in my pocket or camera sling and oftentimes it’s set on Auto for instances where I can pull it out, power it on, and take a quick photo, which is especially handy for those times you see a photo opportunity and you get the shot before it passes you by. These are Auto settings in how it read the scene.
3. Loving London | Horse Garden Parade
Why I love this shot: As we were stumbling along our self-guided tour of London we had just traversed St. James Park and saw a huge open area next to another beautiful building. This was the Horse Garden Parade and a place where many events such as Trooping the Colour takes place. This was a gateway photograph. Had we not stopped here for me to take a photo, we might never have discovered what was on the other side of the castle-like building.
The natural instinct of my family and many other families or groups of people when a photograph is about to be taken is to bunch in close together and smile. Because of the wide angle of the photo and the vastness of the pea graveled grounds, I asked my wife and kids to spread out and make a fun pose. Jennifer and Vivian played along, while Jack and Walker just stood there. Two out of four ain’t bad — but even the boys pose is fine. Walker with his hands to his side with his weight shifted to his right and then Jack holding the backpack straps made for a good all around photo. Again, I edited this photo a lot warmer than I usually do to reflect the summer heat.
Camera Data: ISO 400, f/4, 1/4000 | Shot on Canon R5 Mark II | 40MM focal length
4. The King’s Life Guard | Horse Guards Building
Why I love this shot: First, the good about this photo. Look at the guard’s gaze, his eyes, and his posture. This is exactly what I had in mind when thinking of what a King’s guard would look like up close. I also love how you see his saber and notice that he’s on horseback. I assume when on a horse, this would be considered “at attention”. Kudos to the horse as well, despite the fact that there is so much noise, tourists, and photos being taken the trusty steed did not budge, nor did the guard. I really love the pose, the tight framing, and colors.
But I’m frustrated at myself every time I look at this photo because of what it could have been. Had I not been so jet lagged and tired from flying all night from Atlanta to London, and suddenly without a night’s sleep I find myself in front of the King’s Life Guard around 10:30am London time ready to make a photo, I might have taken my time with the photo. The image is cropped way too much, but I had to crop it tightly because I rushed the shot as there were tourists in the foreground I had to cut out. I was tired and wobbly and not taking any time with my photos at this point. It was simply like, “Oh, there’s a photo I should take because I’m in London for the first and potentially last time ever.” That’s fine for most tourists with an iPhone, but for me — I’m trying to take memorable, and quality photos I can look back at and even print and frame. I probably will print and frame this one because above all, it has a great story behind it.
Camera Data: ISO 400, f/4, 1/4000 | Shot on Canon R5 Mark II | 105MM focal length
5. No, Not That St. Paul’s | St. Paul’s Cathedral
Why I love this shot: Do you see what I see? Yeah, I see banding in the sky as well. This is a byproduct of the amount of editing I did to the photograph. The bad news is that this looks gross and kind of ruins what would otherwise be looked at as a stunning photo. The good news is that when exported out of Lightroom at a larger file size, such as 10MB .jpg, the banding is gone. This is a very small image size (800kb) so I can keep my website running fast. Having said that, I do love this shot and the reason for all of the banding on the upper left part of the picture is because I used a radial mask to lean into and really brighten the light splashing onto the cathedral. This is a technique in editing that I use often — when I see the bright side of an image, sometimes I’ll really accentuate it and make it to where it’s almost clipped just to display the light.
We had been walking all day long, about 19,000 steps to be exact in our first day in London. It almost felt like we had been there for two days already by the time I took this photo. But what a stunning church. It was so peaceful and there was a wedding taking place at the time we walked by. We were heading back to the hotel and it was a simple tilt the camera up, take a wide angle shot and keep on walking. Jennifer reminded me that we also got married at a church named St. Paul’s and it too was a very photogenic church, but our church was in Columbus, Georgia, not quite on the same level as London, England.
Camera Data: ISO 800, f/4, 1/2500 | Shot on Canon R5 Mark II | 24MM focal length
6. Hidden Gaze | The Condor House
Why I love this shot: My trip to London opened up my love of “street photography”. I’ve always been fascinated by famous street photographers like Gary Winogrand, Vivian Meier, and even recent legends such as Joe Greer. But I don’t have the trained eye, or bravery for that matter to take in-the-moment photos of strangers on a busy street. But walking the streets of London, you can’t help but notice all kinds of unique opportunities that materialize and then are gone in an instant. London was the impetus of that curiosity of street photography coming to life for me.
Many people would call this cheating when it comes to street photography because I was zoomed in at 105mm, clear across the street to get this photograph of a very fashionable man standing and waiting in front of the Condor House. The reason it’s interesting to me is it makes you wonder about what he is looking at? But is he looking at anything? He has sunglasses on and earbuds in, so he could have his eyes closed and resting for a moment while he’s listening to classical music. That’s my guess, but no one will ever know and that’s what’s so cool about this practice of taking fleeting moments of strangers you pass on the street. The more I look at this photograph, the more I love it.
Camera Data: ISO 800, f/4, 1/2500 | Shot on Canon R5 Mark II | 105MM focal length
7. Stained Glass Blue Whale | London Natural History Museum
Why I love this shot: Looking back on our 48 hours in London, we didn’t go in depth on anything. What I mean by this is we were on the move, walking, seeing famous landmarks, jumping in The Tube, walking some more, seeing new sights. You get the picture. We had no plan. We had no reservations to see the Crown Jewels, or ride the London Eye, or tour Buckingham Palace. When you only have two nights at a place you’ve never been before, I find that it’s easier to simply come up with a plan at breakfast and try to execute that. This was one of the places we visited on day two in London. I must say a solid night’s sleep was essential to our mood and desire to get out and be tourists. The Natural History Museum was free to enter and it was a welcome break to do some sightseeing inside, due to the unseasonably hot summer day London was experiencing. This is one of the main halls with a blue whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling.
I tried a bunch of things with my camera in this spot. I tried some long exposures to get the people rushing by my camera lens in a blurred kind of state. Those were fine, but I just loved this one that I took with my G7X. The warm early afternoon sun was slicing in over the stairs, which helped make an already regal, old building even more so. I placed a radial mask on the sliver of sunlight in Lightroom to add some texture and bump up the warmth of the photo. This one jumps off the screen when I’m scrolling through my catalog.
Camera Data: ISO 400, f/3.4, 1/1600 | Shot on Canon G7X Mark III — Again, I’m continually impressed with the output of such a small, pocket-sized camera. Canon continues to knock it out of the park with the G7X.
8. Look, The London Eye | St. James Park
Why I love this shot: Having walked through St. James Park on day one of our visit to London, we were lucky that our walk to dinner from our hotel took us all the way through the park again. We had just crossed the famous Blue Bridge inside the park and I stopped to take this photo of the London Eye centered with the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (nice boring name). The evening light along with the compressed image and colors make this one of my favorite photos of the trip. I would have liked for the Union Jack flag to have been fully revealed, but I wasn’t going to wait any longer on a breath of wind. What a beautiful city.
Camera Settings: ISO 320, f/4, 1/4000 | Shot on Canon R5 Mark II. Until I looked at the metadata, I would have bet I shot this at 105mm, but instead it was shot at 85mm. The image is still compressed even at 85mm. The London Eye was on the other side of the Thames from the building in this scene.
9. City Bike | Central London
Why I love this shot: This goes back to my earlier comment about my budding love for street photography. I probably wouldn’t have taken this so up close had I not been in a cab. But I also like how the viewer of this photo can tell it was taken from a vehicle. The biker looks pretty legit in this scene. He has the colorful helmet and wayfarers, coupled with is biker jacket and gloves. Just a cool look that also is juxtaposed in front of a Lotus dealer. Yes, we were traveling through the high society part of town when this image was taken.
I edited it by boosting the blacks in the photo while also carving out a mask for the warm sunlight in the top left of the photograph.
Camera Data: ISO 400, f/1.8, 1/200 | Shot on Canon G7X Mark III
10. Old Man Eurostar | St. Pancras Station
Why I love this shot: Oh how I wish I had taken a step back to get more of the older gentleman in the photo. His personal style and hat was such a throwback. In fact during my time in London, I saw so many people with such classic style. That is reflected in some of the photos posted in this piece. But with him in the far left side of the photo and the Eurostar name and logo centered in the middle, I just love how the eye goes back and forth between him and the train. Again, you just wonder what this man is like. I did not talk to him and I don’t remember seeing him after the photo was taken. But I really went with a more muted color scheme in this edit. The blues were turned down and lightened and I dropped the contrast. The yellow on the train is very yellow, but not in this edit because in the raw file, the pinstripe takes so much away from the man in the corner of the screen, I had to dilute it a bit — and it really works in my opinion. Love this shot.
Camera Data: ISO 125, f/4, 1/250 | Shot on Canon G7X Mark III.
I took a ton of photos with my R5 and my G7X during my two days in London. If I had the desire and thought you would read it, I probably could have done a 30 or 40 favorite photos from London, but I digress. The majority of photos I selected for this post were not taken with the Canon flagship camera, that being the R5 Mark II. Most of them were shot on the G7X. That kind of surprises me. But what does this mean? It means that the camera that you have on you, the one you can access the quickest, and the one you know how to use when a scene unfolds will be the best camera by far.
I would be remiss if I didn’t give a shoutout to our travel agent, Christine of Global Escapes. We said we wanted to spend a couple of days in London to kick off our European vacation and she executed our wishes to perfection. We couldn’t have done it without her. And I hope to visit London again in the future. It is a beautiful city, a clean city, and a very friendly city. I think if I had four days or 96 hours instead of 48 I could get a better feel for the historical sights and simply be able to slow down and take it all in. But I’m thankful for the memories we made as a family and appreciate Londoners for rolling out the red carpet for us. Take care, and carry on.
Scott Duvall is a photographer and videographer based in Watkinsville, Georgia, working across commercial photography, social media content, and video production.