Catching just the right moment for a photo at sunset

Here we are in Lockdown 3 in London. The advice is to stay at home unless absolutely necessary and that’s what I’ve been doing since the number of infections started to rise steeply in early December. So, the times I’ve ventured out have been few and far between. It feels as if I’ve been living in a half-life, half-hibernation state.

The weather has also been a ‘closed in’ type of weather. Mostly cloudy, foggy and grey with a few lovely sunsets and one short flurry of snow thrown in. On the day I took this blog photo, the weather had been blustery but around sunset the wind stilled and I saw the rare sight of this chimney smoke drifting straight up into the air. I really liked the contrast of the grey smoke with the bright orange slice of sunset over the horizon and the soft glow on the water.

The Thames has been very, very quiet recently. Only a few working boats, some tugs and the police boats, are still moving up and down. Everything else has been stopped since last year.

As for me, I’ve been spending my time on some admin and online courses. I’ve changed the name of this website into my name, Loren Brand, so that all of my social media and contact information is under that one name in future.

I was also really pleased this week to see that the Isle of Dogs Life blog has published an article about the history of the Millwall Dock and used my photos from my Isle of Dogs project. I’ve included a link to the blog here. This is such a fascinating place to live so I’m really pleased to be a contributor to that blog and adding to the historical record in any way I can.

I hope you’re bearing up whether you’re staying indoors or working on the front line. Stay safe!

Loren x

Smoking chimney over South East London on a very still day at sunset