Isle of Dogs challenge Day 14 - Island Gardens to Falcon London Heliport
Yesterday I walked from Island Gardens along the river walkway westwards and north as far as the Falcon London Heliport where you have to leave the river path.
This was one of the best walks so far. It could have been the weather which was absolutely perfect. The sort of spring day where you can leave your jacket behind and the soft smell of blossom on the air makes you forget about winter. What winter? The long hard, lockdown winter? Pah! It’s gone!
This walk doesn’t have the knockout views of iconic sights that heading eastwards does. Rather, its views are of the residential buildings and warehouses of Deptford and Surrey Quays. But the walkways are very wide here and there’s a nice mix of old and new with some of the historic dock features preserved. There are a couple of important transport links on the way though. The river bus pier at Masthouse Terrace is one and the helipad just off Westferry Road is another. There are only three commercial heliports within London. They’re at Chelsea, Battersea and the Isle of Dogs. They’re all on the Thames because helicopters have to fly along the route of the river in London for safety reasons. There is a fourth, non-commercial helipad and that's the London Air Ambulance helipad at Whitechapel, on the roof of the Royal London Hospital. Sadly, I missed seeing a helicopter land yesterday by only around 3 minutes.
The tide was low which meant I could get the full front view of the rowing club in a cloudless sky from its slipway (my featured shot today) and get some shots of this riverside house rising up from the beach below with the layers of weed covered walls and timbers beneath.
The next shot shows how wide the walkways are here, enough for them to be tree lined. And the blossom being in prime bloom was an added bonus.
These two shots show the diversity, from the calm of sailing on the river on one side …
...to the busyness of the city streets on the other.
Lastly, I edited what for me is quite a tricky photo. I’d love to perfectly capture the feeling of looking upwards at cherry blossom to the sunlight and a blue sky. It’s one of my top pleasures of springtime. There’s lots of room for me to improve this but I’m happy for now with this one.
That’s an important lesson for me in my photography. It would be easy to become discontented and feel that there’s always more to be done in terms of improving my technical skills and artistic skills which is true. But if you can’t appreciate the journey and feel satisfaction in where you are at this moment in time and feel that this is the best I can do right now, then that would be very sad. I’m so happy to be in a good place where I can be satisfied with what I’m producing right now and still strive towards improvement. It’s a wonderful place to be!
If you know this part of London and have access to a very high view overlooking the Isle of Dogs, please let me know. Ideally it would be from a balcony or through an open window but even through glass would be fantastic. I’d love to include some of those views as part of my project.
Loren x