What is the Winter Lights Festival?
Time Out Says..
The bright lights of Canary Wharf's towers are quite the spectacle after dark, but the business district will glow brighter than usual for 11 days in January thanks to the addition of sparkling illuminations created by artists from around the world. The Winter Lights festival returns for its seventh edition with a new set of dazzling artworks, installations and interactive experiences, plus some old favourites from previous years.
https://www.timeout.com/london/things-to-do/winter-lights
For a number of years I would travel to the Winter Lights in Londons Canary Wharf London to photograph the Light Installations that had been designed and errected. Unfortunately this has not been possible for the past few years due to Covid and the pandemic. However for this article I wanted to show some of my favourite images taken there of London by night..
Time Waits For No Man..
.. except that man just there, to the right of centre.
This was taken on one of my first trips, it was the first time that I'd seen these clocks and it lent itself to an L.S Lowry inspired shot with blurred people as they went about their business.
Zoom Pull!
Canary Wharf Tube
In the same vein as the last shot this was a number of half second exposures taken in Canary Wharf Tube Station to show the movement of people up the escalators. I'd been waiting 2 years to take this shot, and on that night...no security
Trains
I think, well I hope its not just me, that we all get to that stage where the amount of people milling around, pushing and shoving, well it can just get a bit much for me, but I managed to find a quiet spot on the end of a train station. This mage was shot using my Huawei P20 pro phone at the time, then I stacked a couple of the exposures together to produce this image.
One Canada Square
One of my favourite shots from London was standing at the end of a long walkway called One Canada Square and photographing people at 1, 2 second exposures to get that blue indicating movement. I shot this one year and then kept wanting to return over the years to see if I could better my first image. It was a setting that felt very sc-fi to me.
Installations
Finally these are some of the light installations that made up the Winter Lights Festial over the years. This is by no means an extensive list as there are many many shots and many installations, but I wanted to add these as a taster..
As a photographer I try to mix what I do in my shots, I've done still life, some macro work, lightpainting and I enjoy a good model shoot. If you'd like to check out any of my other work I'm on Facebook, or you can find me on Instagram under neilru75
For more great Light Art Photography, Light Painting and inspiration check these light painters: 
Thanks very much for looking
Kind Regards, Neil