After last week’s dusk shoot in Saltaire I thought another urban shoot with a nice reflection would be in order, so I waited for the brightest looking afternoon of the week and headed off to Wakefield to have a look at The Hepworth Gallery reflected in the River Calder.

Arriving not far from the gallery (at Wakefield Kirkgate station) I had a look around the waterfront area around the gallery first.  The winter afternoon light was quite nice on the stark concrete of the gallery building but I’d got a set of shots like that on a previous visit, so having sorted out my viewpoints for dusk I headed up into town for the rest of the afternoon, having a look at the Chantry Chapel of St Mary the Virgin (above) on Wakefield Bridge on the way.

In the city centre, the light was lovely on the imposing cathedral, but the inevitable scaffolding made wide shots of the whole building tricky.  It looked rather fine through the winter trees, though!

There’s quite a lot of nice architecture to look at with the Town Hall and County Hall in the civic area and also the Theatre Royal and Opera House, seen above from over the road outside the Unity Works building.

As the sun got lower in the sky I headed back down to the River Calder and set up the tripod for the view of The Hepworth as the sun went down – the last rays of light catching the clouds and glinting off the old boat wedged in the river.

The clouds moved away as the sun sank below the horizon and as the twilight deepened I got the shot that I’d been looking for, as the lights came on in the windows of the gallery and the long exposure smoothed out the water and revealed the reflection of the building.

I’d noted a couple of other potential viewpoints when I had my initial look round and so when the light got the the optimum “blue hour” effect it was a case of dashing around with the camera on the tripod to get a few more shots, finishing off with the view across the illuminated footbridge toward the galley building.