Eager to capture London’s beauty without its occupants getting in the way, photographer Benjamin Graham was in the city for the 4:30am sunrise

As the capital city is usually crammed with millions of people commuting, working and sight-seeing during the day, choosing when to shoot his photographs was relatively simple

King’s Cross station’s stark lines stand out in the dawn light

Benjamin said: “In my head I had this idea of shooting London when it’s very quiet and in order to shoot London when its quiet and at its best - you don’t really want to go out in the middle of the night when the sky and the illumination is very brilliant.

“I prefer to have that moment when the ambient light and the artificial light are much better balanced with each and in order to achieve that you have to be there around about dawn.”

Empty underground escalators await the morning rush hour

Reflections over the water

The deserted Millennium Bridge in front of St. Paul’s cathedral. The footbridge opened in June 2000 and was crossed by 90,000 people on that first day

To avoid London’s near nine million population, the photographer had to take a night bus into the city to capture his shots

Liberty’s mock-Tudor building on Great Marlborough Street is bathed in the early morning rays

The set, titled London at Dawn, includes views of a sunset-tinted London Bridge and the geometric patterns of the Gherkin, pictured

The neon lights of a lift on a city skyscraper stand out in the early morning

The sky over Albert Bridge which connects Chelsea on the north bank of the Thames to Battersea on the south bank

The flag flies over Buckingham palace with no sign of the crowds that will gather to see the majestic building and the Changing the Guard ceremony

Boates moored in the River Thames near Tower bridge

The Tate Modern, in the former Bankside power station, captured before the crowds make their way to visit