I’ve not been to photograph Hull for quite a while and as it is UK City of Culture 2017 I thought I’d better pay it a visit or two this year…

I picked a sunny day with the intention of staying until dusk.  I headed first to Queen Victoria Square to have a look at the Blade sculpture (featured image, top) which was great, though somewhat tricky to photograph – a 75m wind turbine blade takes up rather a lot of the square, as you might imagine!  From here I wandered along the docks to Hull Marina and down to the mouth of the River Hull out onto the Humber where the fantastic architecture of The Deep made a great subject in the crisp winter sunshine.

After the almost abstract modern architecture of The Deep a look around the Old Town was in order.  Holy Trinity Church also looked great in the winter sun and it had been on my mind to come back here for the dusk shoot, but there was a lot of work going on relaying the paving stones in the square in front of it which ruled out that option, though some shots of the lovely tower worked fine in the afternoon light.

Across the square the fine old Trinity House building was also worth a look, with its colourful coat of arms on the pediment.  There’s plenty more to look at and from here I had a walk along the famous Land of Green Ginger, ending up at The Guildhall and nearby Wilberfore Monument before having a quick look at the Museums Quarter (including Wilberforce House).

By this time it was late afternoon so I headed back to Queen Victoria Square to see how the buildings there looked as the lights came on.  I photographed the City Hall with the Blade in front, but that looked rather odd so I ducked under the sculpture to photograph the building on its own.

The Ferens Art Gallery, however, looked quite good viewed underneath the sculpture, and was nicely floodlit by this time.

As the sky darkened I hurried off down Princes Dock Street to get a few shots of Princes Quay, including reflections of the buildings along the quayside and also of the Maritime Museum.

Down at Hull Marina, the old Spurn Light Ship was nicely lit too.  I didn’t linger here too long as I wanted to get back to the square for the last of the twilight.

The light in the square actually seemed quite eerie – the Maritime Museum had no direct floodlighting but the spotlights on tall masts placed around the sculpture cast a quite bright daylight balanced glow around the square, illuminating the building quite nicely (but I can’t help thinking some nice warm floodlights would have looked nicer!).

See more images from the shoot in the East Riding gallery on the website.