HMS Belfast
Below is the HMS Belfast photography portfolio. You can read more about the ship below, or head straight to the thumbnails to view the images.
HMS Belfast has been moored on the Thames between London Bridge and Tower Bridge since October 1971, and she has been part of the river’s furniture for so long that many people forget she is a warship at all. She is a Town-class light cruiser, launched at Harland and Wolff in Belfast on St Patrick’s Day 1938 and commissioned into the Royal Navy the following year.
Her war was a long one. She was badly damaged by a German mine in the Firth of Forth in November 1939 and spent almost three years being rebuilt. She returned to escort the Arctic convoys to Russia, took part in the sinking of the German battleship Scharnhorst at the Battle of North Cape in December 1943, and on 6 June 1944 she was one of the first ships to open fire in support of the Normandy landings. She served again in the Korean War before being retired in 1963. A campaign to save her from scrap succeeded in 1971, and she is now part of Imperial War Museums, with nine decks open to the public.
She is grey, long and low, and she sits at the foot of some very large buildings, which makes her a satisfying thing to find in a panorama. In the river images she is a grey line against the water below the south bank, and in the wide views from the top of The Shard she is directly below, and at full zoom you can count the gun turrets. Tower Bridge and City Hall are her near neighbours in almost every frame.
The thumbnails below open each image at full resolution.
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Roseate London
The view in this image encompasses so much of the London skyline and many of its iconic buildings. To the left, you have the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. The London Eye with Buckingham Palace nestled behind it within St James’ Park. Move along the Thames to cross the city into the centre of…
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Shard 360 Gigapixel
London from the Top of The Shard A Shard 360 Gigapixel 360 panorama captured high above the city. Shot from the very top of The Shard, more than 300 metres above the River Thames, this Shard 360 gigapixel panorama offers a rare opportunity to explore London’s skyline in exceptional detail. to explore London’s skyline in…
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Constant Thames
Tower Bridge Panorama This high resolution Tower Bridge panorama follows the River Thames as it flows through the centre of London. Past HMS Belfast, More London, including City Hall, towards Tower Bridge, resplendent in blue and white. Across the river, in the City of London, many of its iconic skyscrapers are bursting into light as…
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Shard London Bridge Summit
This 360 image was captured at the top of the Shard London Bridge, 310m above London, on the night of the student protests in November 2010. You can see the police helicopters hovering over London above the demonstration. Technically this was a very difficult shoot, I was on the crane at the top of the…
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The Shard London Bridge – Blue Hour
The Shard is one of London’s most exciting buildings. It was completed in 2012, then becoming the tallest building in the European Union. I shot views from the Shard for the developer, and the sheer height of the building has made it one of the most exciting series of cityscapes I have worked on –…