What have I got myself into?

I thought over the idea of photographing every street in the city for a few days and it seemed like a good project and challenge to set myself. I asked the Chairman of my camera club if he had filled all the presenting slots for next season, and he still had two slots to fill. I told him about my idea, which he liked, and so I will now be presenting my project on 21st of January 2015. I felt strangely good about this, I had committed to the project, and had to do it now!
However, it was only when I came to writing this blog entry that I discovered there were 393 streets in the city of London (and does this include all those little alleys?). I have photographed about 20 so far. In order to complete my project in line with the RPS time frame (October), I will need to photograph around 60 streets a month. In order to complete by the end of year, and just in time for my presentation, I will need to photograph 45 a month. Even the lower of those figures is going to be a tall order, especially as so far I have been mostly shooting very close to my office. Maybe I should have done the maths before committing. !#@&*^%$

Anyway....

Pinners Passage is a small walkway from Old Broad Street to Austin Friars. You might think it doesnt count, but it does have its own street sign, and in my book that means it counts. The building above and to the side of it is fairly recent and Pinners Passage could have dissapeared, but didnt; I think its nice that it still remains.

The next image, with another reflection of Tower 42, shows one end of Austin Friars, and on the other side of the railings, Throgmorton Avenue. Which Street would this count towards, or could you count it for both? In this case, Ihave photographed Austin Friars before, and have another picture of Throgmorton Street (below), so it doest really matter, but it does make me wonder.

Below is  a sign on Throgmorton Avenue about Drapers Hall. Drapers Hall was originally built on land adjacent to, and bought from the Augustinian friary. It had been the house of Thomas Cromwell, Chief Minister to Henry VIII until he was executed in 1540. The Drapers company purchased the property three years later.

Austin Friars Passage is a Tiny alley between Austin Friars and Great Winchester Street, that doesn't give you many options in which to photograph it.

I loved this scene in the alley, though got a few odd looks photographing it. I was tempted to clone out the last line of the sign to add to the humour of it.

The next shot is taken on Lothbury. The building in the picture is the rear of the Bank of England. I loved the dappled light on the wall.

This is the front of the bank of England on Threadneedle Street, taken from in front of the Royal Exchange. The statue is of the Duke of Wellington.

Below is from London Wall, which was originally the defensive wall built around London by the Romans. There are a few places left where they are remains of the wall.

And finally a shot of Moorgate. I'm sure I used to occasionally visit a greasy spoon for breakfast, where this building site is now, when I worked in London previously. I accidentally pressed the shutter in taking this picture whilst checking my camera settings, but it turned out ok(ish).

The idea of my own project

I decided that it might be a good idea, to start my own Bleeding London related project - to photograph every single street in the Square Mile. This seemed like a fun but daunting project. Not only does the city cover a fair distance, but there are a lot of streets and many many tiny little alleys all of which would have to be photographed, and photographed reasonably well - If I was going to do this project, then I would try to get some good images, and not just dash from street to street taking record shots.

As you can see from the image below, the Square Mile is not square in shape. Its also actually a bit bigger than a square mile at 1.12 square miles.

Even at this scale, it can be seen that there are a lot of streets to photograph. No roads though! Not a single road exists in the City, though technically there is half a road. For a bit more info, see this post at the Londonist.

I take my little fuji X100s with me to work every day and usually get in a little early, so should have opportunities for getting a few shots before I start work. The next two shots were from the first of such occasions and taken from a pedestrian bridge across Wormwood Street. The first shows the reflection of Tower 42 in another building, whilst the second, shows just a little of Wormwood Street - on the other side of the crossroads it turns into London Wall.

I also took another picture of Tower 42 (where I work).

Later on I managed a couple of other shots of small side roads/alleys. Austin Friars was an Augustinian friary from the 13th Century to the 16th Century. The site of the friary is enclosed by the streets Austin Friars and Old Broad Street. The only Friary building remaining is the Dutch Church, though this was rebuilt after being bombed in the second world war.

Also just off Old Broad Street is Adams Court, which connects to Threadneedle Street.

And another shot taken outside Tower 42. I have a few here, but I was rather taken by the shadows across the pavement.

On Friday I took my bigger camera, a Nikon D7100, and tripod into work, to take a few pictures after work. I wanted to get a few long exposure shots of London Bridge and the Shard, but the weather wasn't ideal for this as their was no wind, so the clouds were fairly static.I am pretty happy with this shot though.

The next shot was taken on the bridge itself. The sun was getting low and casting long shadows of the commuters crossing over to London Bridge station.

I then ventured south of the river and out of the square mile! At this point I was still thinking of just contributing to the Bleeding London project; I think I had the idea of photographing every street in the square mile on the way home that evening. More London Place near City Hall has some very striking buildings and I have taken a few nice shots here before, but looking up provides a different view altogether.

At the other end of More London Place I saw this great reflection in the front of an office building. I love the South Bank area, but now that I am photographing the entire square mile, I don't think I will be venturing there again for a while.