Happy New Year!

The fireworks show in London is by far the most spectacular one I’ve seen in my life, and I’ve seen more then my share.

The buildup to the moment was already epic, left my apartment at 9pm thinking I had plenty of time to get to the viewing spot I had picked out, but as soon as I rounded the corner and got to the Waterloo bridge I could see that everything was already filled up with hundreds of thousands of people, and every way into the city was fenced off and no one was being let in anymore.

After a good 40 minutes of walking around and probing the inner city defenses like a spy in a mystery novel I found the weak spot, one opening in the fence where people were still sneaking through into St James’s park, and through there I could make my way to Westminster Abby and the view on the tower that I wanted.

Once I gained my prize and made it to the square there, the long wait began. I planted my tripod and camera, and for the next 2 hours I bonded with the people around me who after a while started helping me warning the passers by not to trip over my tripod’s legs – the man from Nigeria with his 3 daughters guarded my west flank, the elderly lady from Liverpool had my back, and the lovely couple from Belarus guarded the east approach.

It was a true team effort to make sure I was setup and had a clean view on the fireworks; And once I photographed the show, I shared the previews on the back of my camera with them, and they oohed and aahed and I think they were pleased with the result of our collaboration as well. All in all my first New Years Eve in London was a fantastic and fun adventure, and a terrific start of the new year.

Hope your celebrations will be full of fun and good times as well, happy new year!!