One photo from each month of 2016. All available as prints from nickminers.com/best_of_2016
The beach at Sandymount, Dublin, Republic of Ireland. On a commission to photograph a hotel in Sandymount, I was asked to take some photographs of the local area to accompany the images of the hotel, so I got up in time for sunrise, walked down to the beach and was rewarded with a beautiful sky.
Cojean, Ludgate Hill, London. Hired to photograph Cojean’s first London restaurant, I noticed the entire restaurant was reflected in each of these Chrome finish pendant lights. Naturally nobody wants to see me so I have removed my reflection from the image but the scene of a relaxed informal cafe remains.
Steinasandur, Iceland. On a tour of Iceland with the Guild of photographers, our tour guide stopped the coach next to this amazing green water, coloured by sediment from glacial erosion.
Millennium Bridge and St Paul’s Cathedral, London. Spending an evening on the south bank with a fellow photographer, the sky turned a fantastic shade of orange. Using a neutral density filter I took this long exposure photo of the busy Millennium bridge to blur the people into abstraction.
Welbeck Street Car Park, London. In a year when I began to document the many brutalist building in London (along with other more modern structures), I began with this classic, tucked away behind the bustle of Oxford Street in London’s West End. Its future is uncertain, having been sold to a hotel chain.
Cartwright Gardens, London. On another brutalist tour of London, I came across this brick facade in Cartwright Gardens, near The Brunswick in the St Pancras area of London. Set to be student accommodation, the use of brick seems to be a popular stylistic choice recently, with new buildings appearing across London in a similar style.
No 1 Poultry, London. On a walking tour of London’s modern architecture, we passed through a public passage that revealed a hidden side to this postmodern oddity in the heart of the City of London.
Wistman’s Wood, Dartmoor. On a family holiday we paid a visit to one of the oldest natural oak forests in the country, in Dartmoor. The weather was full-on sunshine, meaning there was a lot of harsh contrast between the light and shade in the woodland, but our dog, Danny, was more than happy to pose and provide my photo for August.
Sunset, Horgabost, Isle of Harris, Scotland. Another tour with the Guild of Photographers, this time in the island of Lewis and Harris in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. After a few days of average (i.e. grey and wet) weather we were rewarded with a dramatic sunset where the yellow sunlight reflected on the wet rocks being washed by the sea. This was the first of two truly memorable sunsets I saw in 2016.
Loch Leven, Scotland. Our tour of the Hebrides ended, I headed back home with another photographer on the 1st October, allowing me to pick two photos from that trip. We arrived at Glencoe just as the sun was starting to turn orange. The village that takes its name from the famous valley juts out into Loch Leven. With the building in shade and the mountains behind lit by the setting sun, the whole scene is reflected in the gently rippled waters of the loch.
Sunset at Stokksnes, Iceland. This is the second of the memorable sunsets from 2016. After failing to see these mountains in our March visit due to persistent low cloud, I returned to Iceland in November, determined to have another go. Armed with the sunrise and sunset times and a rental car so I was fully independently mobile, I spent the day exploring the East Fjords of Iceland, returning to Stokksnes at just the right time. The mountain, Vestrahorn, was capped with cloud which was moving fairly quickly, and has been blurred to resemble lenticular clouds by the long exposure.
The Switch House, Tate Modern, London. Lacking a photo for December that was appropriate for this gallery, I headed into London yesterday to explore some of the new (and not so new) architecture, including this postmodern marvel that now sits behind the Tate Modern. Sited at the location of the former power station’s switch house (hence the name), this ziggurat-like structure rewards external exploration with no end of angles and textures.