A couple of trips up to London this month means an early blog post for August, and another excuse to take the X100V out and about.

The weather while I was there can only really be described as biblical, making settings a real challenge as the weather went from blazing sun, to pouring rain about every 10-15 minutes or so. Undeterred I tried my best to fit in some full on London tourist street photography.

After a bit of trial and error, I have found myself leaning more and more toward the ‘classic negative’ film simulation. I love how it renders an image, with deep rich tones and just the right amount of saturation. The image above shows this off really well and became my favorite image of the time I was in London.

I took a slow meandering walk across london as the sky became more and more ominous. This did make for some great images over St Pauls however which the X100V captured really well.

I also tried my hand a little more at the ‘fishing’ technique, which I would employ several times across my time in London. I find being able to stop and take in my surroundings helps with this way of letting the image come to you.

One such moment that was perfect to use the fishing technique was when the clouds parted, and the sun created some intense shadows under a bridge at embankment station. I turned the camera to black & white to really show the contrast in dark and light as people walked through the pools of harsh midday light. I simply composed my image and waited for the pedestrians to enter the frame.

However by far my favorite way of capturing the streets is simply by walking, spotting an interesting character to photograph, checking my exposure and observing what is going on around me. I am then able to quickly compose and move on before anyone has even noticed me taking a photo. I find using the flip screen on the camera a huge plus when doing this as I can keep the camera at chest height and still be able to compose and take the shot.

I was also able to test the camera at night with a walk around the neon lined streets of soho. Again the camera performed admirably even when the ISO was pushed to a level I would usually not go near. the compact nature of the camera also made taking the images a lot easier for me.

The London Underground is of course another area of rich pickings, and with the discreet X100V at my side, I was again able to snap away almost unnoticed as I travelled around London.

like a Yo-Yo I will be back in London again for some wedding action at the end of this month so hopefully the weather isn’t quite as crazy as it was this time around.

Finally I must not forget a special mention, and a huge congratulations to Edie & John, who I had the privilege of photographing on their wedding day recently. It was my first wedding using the new Fujifilm X100V. I shot the wedding in RAW and JPEG, but to be honest I ended up having to just tweak the JPEG images in lightroom which meant I could get the images out much faster than normal which is a game changer once again. I used the FujiFilm Pro 400H film simulation recipe I had made to complete the vintage film feel which I think works really well.

FIN