I recently entered a competition on “Urban Exoticism.” From my archive I found 76 images I considered candidates, but only 5 could be submitted. Over the next few days I’ll share some of those that didn’t make the cut.
click any image below to see them full size.
Is this a liminal space? It’s definitely in-between (the street and the subway platform). The blacked-out former advertising hoardings give it an abandoned air.
Is this a liminal space? It appears to be a public sculpture plaza in a fancy building on Park Avenue in midtown Manhattan. But it’s empty and devoid of people. It’s the space between the street and the Lever offices. It’s attractive but looks rather forlorn and abandoned.
Since I’ve started consciously collecting images of liminal space (see my series, Neither Here nor There), I see them everywhere I turn.
with apologies to Tolkien
Another soapbox issue of mine – the Upper West Side Urban Renewal Project – a plan first mooted in the late 1950s to “clear slums” and redevelop the area. Developers were given mighty concessions to bulldoze people’s homes and rebuild, while making few concessions of their own. One of those was the provision of public garden spaces. In my neighborhood this was most often met with an open expanse of cement holding a withered sapling in a concrete box, or something a tad nicer, surrounded by a fence to keep out people from the neighborhood. With the expiration of these requirements after a period of about 20 years, building owners rushed to build retail space on the sites of these barren “gardens” (increased revenue), topping them with private parks open only to the residents of their buildings. So now we must look up to see our crown of thorns.
A candidate for adding to Urban Tree Portrait?
“Health and Wellness for All” who can afford to LOOK their Best. Be Best.
There’s a tremendous amount of art in the streets of Brighton, as evidenced by these few snaps (and see below) I got on the brief hour I had walking around between the Landscape of Inequality presentations and the Evoke/Provoke private view at Views in Transition during the Brighton Photo Fringe.
I was in Brighton with my former classmates and Evoke/Provoke collective members for the private view of Views in Transition, part of the Brighton Photo Fringe. I had about an hour between a truly excellent set of presentations from CRUX: Landscape of Inequality in the afternoon and the beginning of the private view to walk around Brighton for the first time. To see the pictures below larger, click on any one of them (on the web, if seeing this in email click the post title, above, first).
The slogan of the Brains Brewery, “people who know beer, have Brains,” is the kind of clever advertising I enjoyed seeing around Cardiff. I did not, however, get the opportunity to taste any Brains while there.
The triangle juts out from the corners of Principality (formerly Millennium) Stadium. A couple of other contrasty Cardiff street views I converted to black and white below.
Cardiff is famed for its many shopping arcades. The sign over the Taco Bar below (click to enlarge), advertises “unauthenc Mexican food” [sic].
We walked into the city centre and gawked like tourists (see below).
I’ve photographed this scene from the train window many times before, hoping to use it for my Word project. This time the train slowed to a stop in the perfect spot but I only had my phone with me.
