I have photographed this scene before and was really happy with the results, but there were always going to be people in the way. Last Sunday morning, I got the Tube down to St. Paul’s Cathedral and walked across the Millennium bridge – it was still as busy with people as ever. This time I had my tripod and super wide angle lens and if you compare what you see below (the original first attempt taken last May) with the new version above, I think you will agree my latest photo is much better. But, I hear you ask, where have all the people gone?
Being on a tripod there is no movement of the camera, therefore the only thing that moves is the pedestrians. So by taking half a dozen photographs, not moving the camera but just waiting till the people move themselves around or out of the frame at different areas of the composition I am left with a range of images that have all the detail of the bridge but the people moving around. Using an advanced feature in Adobe Photoshop I can then tell the program to look through all six images and remove the parts of the image that change from picture to picture (i.e. the people) and then I’m left with a people free photograph.