Geometry and Light in the City

This was taken in London’s financial district, deep among the glass giants. The Fuji X100F was in my hand, but I hadn’t raised it for a while. Then I turned a corner and saw this, a clash of reflections, lines intersecting at impossible angles, shadows slicing across polished steel.

It was instinct. I didn’t think too long about composition. I just reacted to the tension in the geometry, the way sunlight turned the towers into abstract sculptures.

The X100F is perfect for these moments. Light, quick, unobtrusive. I kept the aperture around f/5.6 to hold detail in the surfaces and let the shadows stretch naturally through the frame. Black and white felt obvious. Colour would have softened the graphic impact. Here, contrast is the subject.

Looking up, I felt small. Not in a bleak way, just aware. These structures aren’t built for comfort and they’re built to impress, to dominate, to reflect the sky back at itself. And yet, they can be beautiful when the timing is right.

This frame is less about storytelling and more about seeing. Noticing how cities shape light and how light, in turn, reveals the design. For a moment, the city wasn’t just concrete and commerce. It was form. It was shape. It was something worth pausing for.