This is one of those areas that I’ve always wanted to get a few shots of, but it’s pretty far to walk it from my house, and the only other time I was near it was on a commute, and no-one stops when they’re commuting.
You’re going home. Now.
Annoyingly, I’ve become predictable even to myself, and I took a tonne of photos that I’ve already taken of other buildings before, so these are the “new” ones.
I don’t believe I’m at a stage in my life with my camera where I actually think these would look better with an overcast sky. Still, I’m not the sort of person to force it just because it’s what I want.
I love going to Birmingham. We never go anymore, mainly because we live on the South coast I guess, but I seemed to have forgotten how awesome the shopping is there. It also doesn’t appear to be as full of tunnel-visioned, inconsiderate retards as Southampton.
There are also some really amazing buildings and places dotted about. Next time we’re up, I’m going to take a day off and wander round taking photos. I could’ve spent all of today doing it but we had to do shopping. Guh.
Also saw a side of Evesham I haven’t seen for a very long time. Went out to walk the Terrierists with mum.
Realistically it’s not often that, being a fully-fledged adult with responsibilities and bills to pay and whatnot, that you actually get a whole day to yourself. In fact, it never happens. There’s always cleaning to do, or people coming round to take away your old furniture, or something that stops you doing whatever the hell you want. Every day. That’s why today, I wanted to take some time out to do the stuff that I want to do (after I’d done the cleaning, and a guy came round to take away an old wardrobe – coincidence?). I wanted to:
So, after the cleaning and the wardrobe guy, It was computer time. The cat, sadly, had different plans. She loves my laptop – it’s so comfortable, and if she sits on it just right, it makes an awesome sound constantly. If you watch Futurama closely, you know the sound that my laptop makes. Ami loves this noise. So first I had to move the cat.
Once I managed to stop feeling bad about moving her, the music was done and we went for our walk. On Commercial Road, they’ve been redoing a guitar shop. It’s now done and it looks badass. It totally stands out against all the other shops on the whole block. Kudos to those guys for doing something different.
Round the corner of the concrete jungle, we spotted this awesome apartment that has bright pink flowers framing their balcony and is the only one on the entire block. Stands out like a sexy thumb.
Onto type. There’s no reason for this, other than the fact that I know some good compositions can emanate from great fonts, and the ones that don’t breed decent compositions are just nice typefaces. You’ll easily be able to spot the ones I could see something good in! Others are just font.photo.leave!
This was hilarious. I love this simple sans font, I have no idea what it is but it’s tall and narrow like Helvetica. A bored waiter obviously saw me admiring their sign and enquired as to the reason for my photos. He wondered whether they were for personal use. Luckily for both of us, these aren’t going towards my freelance work as a professional sign photographer. Ass.
This is right next to it. Stuff like this is just so unnecessary! Such a contrast to the last one, which is just like a simple print job, some poor person has laboured over this and I really appreciate it. In a totally understated place, and serving a seemingly minimal function. A little diamond in the rough (Aladdin. Awesome).
This building was pretty much my reason for even starting this. I can’t really explain why, but I love this building and I love their sign.
Tucked away on a side-street, this empty building bears a classic-looking, thin, simple serif font that doesn’t really fit where it is. If you spin round 90˚ there’s a huge, ugly, 60s block of flats.
And finally, I am always drawn to this worn 14, just down the road from our flat.
It’s occurred to me that this is essentially a 60/40 split between examples of type and examples of type as a focal point for a photograph. So sue me!
This building is a bit ludicrous. It’s down by Southampton train station, an area I like to call the concrete jungle. Largely because of the fact that there are 3 or 4 massive buildings, which constitute around 2 blocks of pure concrete. They are a bit of an eyesore, but I love them!
This is the HSBC building (though it never looks very busy, I don’t know how used it is). I’ve always meant to take a photo of it, but I’ve never been able to see the building as I want it to be recorded, so I never have. Today, we both felt a bit rough whilst wandering through town, and this building just presented itself as a great abstract/lines subject so I thought I’d use it to test out my new memory card. I got a whole bunch that I liked, but they’re all pretty similar so no need to post!
Happy weekend!