Heavy Rain Showers!!

A Happy New Year to you! I always enjoy the start of the New Year, especially photographing the annual London New Year’s Day Parade. A nice event to photograph which always produces lively atmospheric images (depending on the weather – read on!).

I always like to arrive early photographing the performers as they line-up along the back streets, capturing those moments before the event begins on Piccadilly. Those details of the performers warming up, making their final adjustments to their make-up and costumes normally provides natural captivating photographs.

Always check the weather forecast!

Weather always has an effect on what sort of images you are going to capture, I’ve covered this event on many cold crisp winters New Year’s Days, with clear blue skies. But that wasn’t to be the case this year!

I spent around half an hour photographing the performers along the back streets, taking photographs of them preparing to line-up and tuning their instruments etc. A lot of the performers were from the southern states of USA, looking like the cold wind wasn’t helping their preparations. Gradually as it got closer to the start of the procession it became apparent the sky in the distance was blackening up and the wind blowing the dark clouds fast towards us. Soon the photographs were about to get much more interesting!

Next time I’ll bring a poncho

Once the dark rain clouds arrived the rain suddenly poured down upon us, creating panic between all the performers trying to cover their instruments and stop their costumes becoming soaked through to their skin. Most of the performers had plastic ponchos to protect themselves. I was probably one of the few that didn’t, feeling underprepared after I had not properly checked the weather forecast ahead of travelling into the centre of London. Luckily I had brought two chamois leathers with me in case of any dramatic weather changes to place on my cameras to protect them. I quickly moved around photographing the unfolding situation. Doing my best to keep my cameras dry. The light dropping making it difficult to focus.

The rain showers came and went, long enough to get plenty of atmospheric weather photographs. Afterwards, I made my way to a hotel to set up my laptop and file some images. Also not wanting to expose my cameras to the rain for a long duration of time in case my cameras pack up on the first assignment of the year! I was soaked, but both cameras fairly dry! The chamois leathers saved my day again!

I shot the photograph on a Leica M10-P, with a 50mm Summicron f/2 lens. All working perfectly the following day.