Behind me was Albert Bridge and ahead of me was Battersea Bridge (hence the post title).
I attempted a whole bunch of other long exposures on the same night but they really didn't come out too well; I left the UV filter on the lens which made some lights flare all over the place, I left vibration control on which blurred the picture as the image drifted off slightly to one direction, and I forgot to set the ISO to the base level which made the images noisy and the exposure much shorter than I wanted. These initial trial and error phases helped me on the road to my later more successful long exposure attempts I posted previously. And, much like my other long exposures, I set my camera on a wall for lack of a tripod. This was a 30 second exposure taken at f22, basically the smallest aperture I could get away with at 18mm.
What I like most about this picture are the different colour gradients in the sky and on the water. There's still a sliver of sunlight over the horizon, so the night sky hasn't completely blacked out. The garish lighting on the Albert Bridge has lit up the brown Thames water in the foreground, fading to blue/black and interrupted by the multicoloured light sources reflecting in the background. I also managed to capture the flashing lights of a passing aeroplane, although it's a bit difficult to see on some monitors and at this resolution (and I don't feel like posting 16Mbit images).
I have taken some long exposure photos along the Thames with an actual tripod and they look pretty good but I'll save them for another day. I think I'll upload some street photos in my next post, I sure do miss posting those black & white goodies :P
