A Citizen’s Journal of Salford , with Not Quite Light

I took the opportunity to take a visit to Salford to visit a fellow night time urban landscape photographer who’s work I’d been fascinated for a while and discovered initially through Twitter. Simon Buckley’s Not Quite Light Weekend festival , as inspiration and for a short break shortly before I’d launched my “Venturing into Nocturnal Nottingham” exhbition at Sobar .

In the festival Simon worked with a wide variety of artists , poets , and musicians to produce a series of events themed around the experience of the transition between dusk and dawn , along with an exhibition launch of a project documenting cityscapes near to Salford Crescent.

One such event was a dawn photowalk around the streets of Salford which was guided along by Simon ,  who also had a writer , illustrator and a psychogeographer making their individual contributions to a citizens’ journal documenting the city of Salford around 4am.

A fascinating twist for me as usually I struggle with early mornings and very rarely work by dawn , but it was eye opening to see how quiet a city can be at that time – with little going on , compared to working at dusk. Personally it was a long evening – I’d struggled for sleep the night before before waking up at 3am to eat breakfast and take a taxi over to Greengate Square from my residence.

On the walk Simon took us to one of his favourite spots , the nearby flat car park of Queen Street , with distinctive yellow walls and fences surrounding it. Felt it was a very fitting microcosm of Salford with new buildings and cranes in the skyline springing up at a rate of knots , contrasting with the old brick walls surrounding the car park. Compared with Nottingham the amount of redevelopment , as well as the juxtaposition of old and new building is very striking – a place in transition , but one with a strong local sense of pride.

We were invited to take a walk down to the Irwell past a road with a new housing development. Another striking juxtaposition with a vast increase in the amount of greenery – leading to a bridge going across to an old mill. Areas which hadn’t yet been touched by the hand of modern development , but which will do in short order. Shortly after we met back up at the Queen Street Car Park and it was fascinating to see and share our experiences of the morning’s events .

A good bit of fun , and was happy to go back to my apartment with some nice memories and images to boot , ready for the rest of the day’s shooting.