For better and/or worse my work has just moved to Canary Wharf. It’s an easier commute, a much-need change of routine, and a nicer office; on the other hand, it’s Canary Wharf. Next year’s challenge is to find ways of photographing the area that don’t look like tedious stock photos or illustrations in magazine articles about the evil or brilliance of bankers. A tough ask, I suspect.

Outside the old office.

Outside the new office

The Tour de France passed by my work yesterday – more or less, anyway. We nipped out of the office and down to Tower Hill, found a sunny spot, bought ice creams, and waited. The sunshine turned to rain and, eventually, the riders arrived. I had a small gap through which to point my Nikon – looking straight across the road, so not great for focus-locking. I got a couple that I was pleased with (most of the others made it look like the riders we’re going at about 5mph – too fast a shutter speed, not enough background blur to give a sense of speed or dynamism).

I’m told that at least one of these riders is Alberto Contador, and that apparently counts for something.

We moved house two years ago, from a house whose garden was rarely visited by birds, to one that gets a reasonable number of the usual suspects – given our inner London location we can’t expect too much, I guess. Last year saw a brief visit from the goldfinches; this year they’ve pretty much moved in. I look out of the kitchen window before setting off to work and they’re on the feeder; come home from work: still there. The annual nyger seed budget was blown weeks ago.

Photographing them isn’t easy – they fly off at the first sign of human movement, and they’re pretty much in constant motion. Here are my best efforts to date:

Boarded-up pub on Whitechapel High Street.