Abstract interior architecture

Well, not quite abstract but with definite leanings...

What's in a name?

This work is an homage to Douglas Hofstadter and his seminal work, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid,a book that helped me on my journey to understand 'life, the universe and everything'.

Three Part Fugue With Inversion

A photographer friend, John Miles, had invited me to see his digital darkroom set-up in Royal William Yard. On leaving, I noticed the beginnings of this arrangement as I turned right (I came into the scene 'stage left'). I backed up as far as I could, even leaning backwards over the rail a little to fill the frame with the composition I was after and made the shot. As usual, I fired off two or three (especially when there's lowish light and it's hand-held), just to make sure!

The title is chosen for the composition. The various compositional structures rotate, reflect, invert and repeat each other, much like JS Bach did with the themes in his fugues. There's also hints of Escher, with the deep perspective and hints of a jumping of levels.

I didn't need to do a great deal to this shot, just a little bit straightening and some dodging and burning to enhance the lighting and some of the textures.


comments / critique / feedback always welcome :)

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Neighbours - a social comment

I was staying at a friends a while back in their beautiful new home. It's in a development on what was Ipswich's war-time airport and in their back garden, I was struck by how isolating these spaces are.

Too much privacy?

Neighbours, Ipswich 2007

Some would say it's for privacy, and I guess that view has some merit. I just question the totality of it. I think that much more usual, and what I'm more used to, is hedges, low fences and walls, where you can still see your neighbour's space if you make a little effort—you know, crane your neck, trim the hedge, pick weeds out the wall. That way, it's still private, but not entirely off-cutting.

By this I mean that the out-of-sight, out-of-mind syndrone exists. You know, the SEP field generator used by Slarty Bartfast (Hitch-hikers Guide To The Galaxy) to hide his spaceship (SEP field—a field that works on the Somebody Else's Problem principle— if it's somebody else's problem, it hits your slippery-shouldered blind spot, where your subconscious knows it can safely ignore the existence of the thing and so you just don't see it).

So this image is a social comment about the slow destruction of real-world community by the treatment of people by large organisations as repeating homogeneous units, where one is the same as the next.

How you read the image is up to you—there's certainly heavy overtones of regimented uniformity; suppressed uniqueness, enforced uniformity—the way our personalities are wrapped up into little indistinguishable boxes.


comments / critique / feedback always welcome :)

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Use your feet to find the shots

Sticking in the vein of abstract architecture and how there's more than one shot in a scene...

It's just a concrete hotel

I was staying in a hotel by Heathrow Airport when I was working up that way. In the day in, day out trudge of it all, my antennae must have been out and twitching because after a few weeks I felt the urge to wander around the uninspiring grounds with my camera.

My first point of call was up-close and personal with the architecture. Soaring architecture often has a profound effect on me and, when you're close, the steep perspective exaggerates it.

So here's the up-close shot of the end of the building.

Holiday Inn, M4/J4

...and then I looked at my feet (actually a few steps away against another wall)



Then, walking amongst the trees that separate the hotel from the motorway junction, I saw I could frame yet another aspect of the building. Actually, the tree branches were swaying gently in the soft breeze, so I framed and then waited until they blew into just the right position for making the shot.

If you follow that middle panel of the end wall down to ground level, it was just to the side of this, looking up, that I made the first shot.

comments / critique / feedback - all appreciated :)

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Altered viewpoint, different image

In my last post I talked about having to hunt around to find a viewpoint that worked. So in this post I thought I'd show how much the viewpoint can change the final image.

Rectilinear Mosaics

This photo from my monochrome gallery goes to show that there's often more than one shot to be had from the same scene, emphasising how important viewpoint can be.

Have a look at the following shot:

Rectilinear Mosaics, Arundel Street, London, 2007

and compare it to the one a couple of postings ago

On this one, I was right by the wall at the side of the building, whereas the earlier one was taken from across and down the street.

I think you'll agree that they are radically different, and both 'work' even though it's basically the same scene. This in turn demonstrates that their are lots of different shots avaiable, so searching and finding the right one is an essential part of getting across your artistic intent.

So don't just turn up, whip out your camera and click away, put your feet to good use and get the viewpooint that conveys the sense of what you're feeling about the subject.

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An abstract architecture shot

I thought I'd drag this one over from my main site as one to discuss briefly. It was another opportunistic shot as many of mine are. It was taken on the way back from a meeting (on my day job) in Bush House and heading to Temple tube station.

Blind Fan

Blind Fan, Arundel Street, London, 2007

I was glancing around, looking for a shot based on the repeating patterns of the office blocks that had caught my eye on the way in.

As I checked around for a viewpoint that would take advantage of the way the bright sunlight was falling across it, I caught sight of the window with the damaged blind. It seemed almost to be winking at me, saying "Me! Me!".

I had to swap for my 70-300mm zoom lens to make the capture, being careful to position the blind at one of the rule-of-third's intersections. The face was in bright sunlight and the side in shadow and all I did in the digital darkroom was to accentuate the highlights and burn the shadows a little, to suit my artistic intent.

The result is beyond what I expected and I was—am—happy with the result.

comments / feedback / critique welcome as usual

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So many sails at Sainsburys...

Sainsburys, Marsh Mills, Plymouth.
I managed a couple of hours or so in the digital darkroom to process this one. I liked it because of the framing provided by the trees - and the fact I found an angle to capture all the sails.
Not the best of the bunch, but a good addition to the study.

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Another hotel shot

I hummed and hawed about uploading this image, being worried about any possible copyright infringement of the hotel's logo. However, it's incidental to the shot and is partially obscured so I'm fairly comfortable about it.
I really like this shot - it took a lot of walking around the grounds of the hotel to find the pov that worked best and then for the sky conditions to be right. It's lucky I was staying there during the week for a few months!

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Catching up on the DDR backlog

Another take during a recent stay at a hotel near Heathrow. I was attracted by the cobweb shapes made by the windows when viewed from this angle.

It could be thought of as giving a nod in the direction of man-made stuff replacing / squeezing out nature.

It took a little while for the sky to improve to what I thought would work out in the hdr / tone mapping and I'm pleased with the overall result.

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Another for Urban Ugliness vol II

This is one I took a few weeks back that I finally managed to push through the DDR. I've called it Rubble To Be. The general decay of the building appealed to me - roof tiles gone with just the skeletal frame remaining but there was something missing...

After a wander around, I found the complementary element to the shot that I was looking for - the pile of stones and beams up against the building.

It seemed to me that it was "winding up" the decaying building - almost taunting it by implying that very soon, it too would just be rubble.

I often do that, paint a little story inside my head, imagining the conversation that might be taking place if the objects were animate. Ok, so maybe I'm a little nuts ;)

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Holiday Inn, Heathrow

I managed to get off a couple of shots this evening around the hotel where I'm staying, while on contract in Staines.

A lovely lady called Fiona from the hotel came to check me out while I was taking the shots - very reasonable in these times, especially since it's so close to the airport.

This is the first one out of the digital darkroom. I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out, the composition overall and the sky especially. My imaginative (not!) working title for it is Hotel Wall And Sky. There are a few promising ones left to do... watch this space :)

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