Art of the Built Environment

With Birmingham hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2024 , large swathes of the city are undergoing redevelopment with an impressive amount of new projects being approved and built. Back in January (2019) I had the opportunity to take a look at the redevelopments at Paradise Circus and Chamberlain Square in and around the new Library of Birmingham – since I visited only two years […]

Two evenings well spent within November taking a look at the urban landscape found the leafy Park Estate in Nottingham. The estate’s tennis courts sat within a natural dip with interesting views of buildings situated at the top of the hills on roads surrounding the estate. A notable feature of the Park Estate and one I want to make some comments on is that […]

An installation by Wolfgang Buttress adorning the frontage of Biocity’s remodelled building in Nottingham, which was completed in 2017. Data taken from NASA satellites over a 26.5 day period has been used to program the patterns and intensity of ligthing of the fiber optic strands within the frontage – a very imaginative way of illustrating and bringing to life the results of the chemical […]

A walk around Salford Crescent , close to where I had an apartment for a weekend and a chance to gather a feel of the local area having arrived on a train from Nottingham a couple of hours previously. What becomes very clear very quickly is the sheer rate of change and development as the city of Salford has reciveved a large amount of […]

A look at Architects of Air’s latest luminarium , Daedalude which visited the Lakeside Arts Centre at the University of Nottingham in June 2018. As always , a special light show is produced within these inflatable structures which are toured – as the sunlight is carefully and deliberately filtered through a polymer skin – with sections being translucent some spectacular lighting effects can be seen. […]

Following on from the Citizens’ Journal , where I went on a photo walk led by Simon Buckley of Not Quite Light ,  the sun was making its appearance above the horizon. I’d chose to stick around to capture the essence of the morning light for a bit before walking back to Salford – what was particularly impressive was the way the low sun reflected […]

I’m pleased to announce that my recent Cathedral Nave Spin image above has been chosen Manchester Cathedral as part of their Capture the Cathedral exhibition and photography competition.  Also the image has been selected as a winner of the “Something Different” category , and runner up overall . In the category entries were encouraged which invited imaginative takes on any part of the Cathedral. […]

A snapshot of the vibrant and colourful murals which were produced during the recent Beeston Street Art Festival , organised by Jeanie Barton and the Beeston Civic Society through a successful crowdfunding campaign. Well executed urban street art really does a good job in making a town centre a more distinctive place to be with a unique character – and these murals did a great […]

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 walk around the streets of Nottingham in amongst a rather snowy St Patrick’s Day – as the Beast From the East struck again for a second turn. This time around the weather varied wildly – bright sunshine turning into snow drifts and full-on blizzards within minutes and it was fascinating to see how people reacted , trying to find cover in amongst the […]