I grew up out in the suburbs but London was always about, when my Dad started working in town the appeal of the big city grew on me more and the small trips on the trains and tubes to the tourist spots with my parents excited me. One thing that was always a constant, especially when I began to work in town and live closer towards the centre of town, was that everything I saw of London was from ground level.
The Offices I’ve worked in and flats lived in have all been no more then two or three floors up and whilst some had nice views of the river others had just other buildings and dirty high streets. I’ve been up the London Eye once and took in the view of the main tourist sites you can see from there. The weather wasn’t especially great but you could see quite a few things.
This weekend the impact of London on me changed, I knew London was big, I’ve travelled through most stops on the tubes to nearly all the ends of the lines, and headed further out on the mainline trains but nothing prepared me for the view I got Saturday afternoon.
I’d spent the early afternoon walking through town, I strolled from Bond Street, across Oxford Street and down to Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Avenue to look for Christmas presents for friends and family. Whilst the shopping trip wasn’t fruitful for presents it was for me (DMZ vol 1, 100 Bullets Vol 3 and Firefly – Better Days). After leaving the shop I placed a quick call to a friend to see if the arrangements they had said they would be able to sort were still on and they were, and with that I made my way to the junction of Charing Cross Road, Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road.
This is where the fun began. I made my way into Centrepoint and met my friend who spoke to th receptionist who let us through. Standing waiting for the lift nervous excitement was beginning to bubble up and once in the lift a small smile took over my face. We zoomed up missing floor after floro before quickly reaching our destination. I walked out and stepped into Paramount’s bar and dining area taking in the beautiful brass bar and the swish seating, but this wasn’t why I was here. we walked back out and up a short set of stairs. I was here, the viewing gallery. The view took my breath away and the small smile was now a massive grin.
Sunset Over London
The viewing gallery goes round 360 degrees with various armchairs and seating all the way around the middle and it was on one of these chairs I placed my bag and took in the view across West London. The sun was starting to fade and the sky was clear, I’d luckily got good weather and thats whwen I began to get to work. I ended up spending an hour going in circles around the gallery with the light quickly fading to being really quite dark and the city lighting up. Using my tripod and remote I managed to grab plenty of long exposures over the course of the hour trying to fit in the main landmarks and roads.
New Oxford Street
It was great to experience London from a view I had never seen before and my luck with the weather and light made it so much more amazing. To see the rest of the photos from the top of Centrepoint take a look at View From Paramount / Centrepoint – A Flickr Set
