I captured this Panorama over the Rooftops of North London with Canary Wharf on the last day of 2015 – a panoramic view looking south west over the rooftops of Haringey.

Yes it is sometimes sunny in London! I was shooting almost directly into the sun with this picture, so the image took some careful post-production in order to coax some detail out and to separate and spread out the tonal range. The end result I think is spectacular – these are the shots that are extremely difficult to pull off but which give you great satisfaction when they do work out.

I love the compression of the cityscape which a powerful lens such as the 300mm telephoto that I used here; sometimes squeezing together the space can so flatten the perspective as to “dumb down” and kill an image – but when you have strong compositional lines, contrasts, and a mass of detail like in this panoramic view across the rhythmical rows of terraced houses and the rooftops of Harringay in north London, with a distant, hazy focus point as are the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf, then the use of a powerful telephoto lens enhances and in fact highlights the strong graphical atmosphere of the scene.