Crowne Plaza Reading.

Watching over the traffic!

Situated on the Thames by Caversham Bridge, the Crowne Plaza Reading is a three-storey building of a fairly typical design for the hotel group. It is on a busy roundabout on the A4155.

It is clearly a main through route to/from Reading. During the morning, traffic is mainly heading in to the town, in the evening, of course, it’s the reverse.

Even so, the headlights of the cars approaching from over the bridge overpower the tail lights of the vehicles going the other way. Ideally, it is better to have the tail lights nearest you (ie traffic going away), as then the balance between the red and white trails is more balanced.

However, it was impossible to get a suitable angle on the Crowne Plaza Reading. Trees and road signs prevented that! So, it was a case of waiting for a lull in the traffic (fortunately, there is a set of traffic lights the other side of the bridge which caused helpful gaps).

A relatively short exposure time also minimised the amount of light trails in this shot. Being fairly early evening, it was still relatively light. In fact, it is quite noticable how quickly the days are starting to draw out now. The winter is the best time of year for this kind of shot, because there is still plenty of traffic around. In the height of summer, when it is getting around 10pm before it is dark enough, there is far less traffic around to create the light trails.

The Crowne Plaza Reading is seen here at the start of the “blue hour”. A hint of a sunset has created a lighter patch. The wet roads and pavements are generating some atmospheric reflections.

Photograph Details

• Taken: 15 Feb 2017
• Camera: Canon 5D MkIII
• Lens: Canon EF 24-70mm 1:2.8 L II USM
• Focal Length 31mm
• F/22
• 10 Sec
• ISO 100