After a long dry summer, we have had so much rain here in the last couple of weeks that it feels like the weather has gone to the opposite extreme.

I was in London a couple of days ago, taking a gentle potter along the north side of the Thames, when I came across this scene with the Shard in reflection.

It was in the middle of the afternoon: from this position, the sun was in front of me. Not ideal — this is a composition that would probably be most dramatic at dawn or dusk to get light raking across, and to take the Shard itself out of shadow. Nevertheless, I love the scene. The rain had stopped an hour or so before, and the sun was making a rare appearance. The sky was a lovely blue with clouds blowing across. A fair size puddle left over from the rain was just right to get the reflection for this picture.

By crouching down and putting the camera as close to the puddle as possible, I got the reflection showing very nicely. Importantly, this angle allowed me to hide the sun behind the large angular structure to the right so that it did not blow out the whole of that part of the picture. You can also see some bright light hitting the bottom of the wall beyond the puddle: that came from sunlight reflecting from the building behind me.

Because the brightest light was in front of me, the walls were in deep shade. To cope with this wide range of lighting, I shot this as a hand-held, three-frame HDR: one normally metered exposure, one at +2 stops, and one at -2 stops. Sony Alpha-1, 16-35mm f/2.8 GM at 16mm and f/11. I made the HDR blend in Lightroom.

Sunshine after the rain: for me, this picture captures the feeling of that moment.