This morning started as usual, with a review of the prior day’s images from each of us. Happily, Alain was feeling well enough to join us, although this wasn’t to last: he went back to his hotel around noon to continue his recovery.

At both the morning session and then continuing during lunch, Edmond spoke at length about how light determines the image. Which of course is obvious, as the very word “photograph” means “light writing”. But he meant it in a very specific way, which I hope you will see in the images below.

When I leaned that we were going to the V&A Museum, I was disappointed. I’m not a fan of taking pictures of artwork, at least not for any purpose than remembering what you saw. But our visit was not about the art at all – it was utilizing the way the light enters through skylights and huge windows to create the opportunities Edmond was speaking about. Here’s an example:

While that image has been edited a little to emphasize the boy, the opportunity arose because he was the only one in the crowd that was bathed by that pool of light coming in from the sidewalk grate above.

The light in the museum was indeed interesting, and there were thousands of people there to try and position for a pleasing image. Among them were a group of art students sketching some of the sculptures – they were also trying to capture the way the light modeled the figures.

I took a break from this and went outside to call back home, and noticed a new-ish addition to the museum that had a very modern design, in contract to the 19th century architecture of the main building.

Obviously, these were not part of the day’s assignment. But I liked the way they came out.

As a bonus, there is a permanent photography exhibit in two large halls on the fourth floor of the museum which we went to visit. One of the halls in dedicated to Elton John and David Furnish; Elton donated his extensive collection of photographs to the museum a few years ago. The exhibit was American photographs; it was seriously excellent and worth the time we spent there. The image above, by a famous photojournalist who went by the name Weegee was a page 1 photo of a fire that was taken with very primitive equipment in 1943.

Late in the afternoon we headed down to Kensington and walk around the Harrod’s neighborhood. Again, I tried to find subjects that were made possible by the differences in how light played over the frame. I found it extremely difficult to get images with even a little artistic merit that captured this concept. But I did manage a few.

By this time we were all exhausted. Alain had bailed at noon; Q left us around 6:00 as she had a theater ticket. The four remaining went for a dinner, as much to have a place to sit as to eat. But the meal and conversation were enjoyable.