City Arboretum (September 2019)

Nottingham arboretum was the first public park to open in the city (11th May 1852) and is a fine example of Victorian landscaping. Originally designed to provide green spaces and open clean air for the residents of the city it has the same purpose today, more than 150 years later.

Visiting at the start of autumn provided a good opportunity to capture the subtle variations in colour before the peak of the season and these were some of the results:

Away from the arboretum are these shots of the Nottingham Contemporary building. It is a wonderful piece of city architecture and one that I often photograph, particularly when the sun highlights the gold panelling:

Mirrors (August 2018)

I was captivated by the mirrors in Trix & Robert Haussmann's retrospective at the Nottingham Contemporary Art Centre. The Haussmann's are Swiss architects and designers who describe their approach as dealing in 'disturbed reality': embracing irony and ambiguity, artifice and illusion. This includes using mirrors to create a virtual reality: 'with a mirror, you can destroy the real, enlarge it, change it':

City Abstracts

For this post I am diverting away from the autumn on the Southwell Trail series to a set of abstract photographs taken along the canal towpath in Nottingham.

This is one of my favourite city walks and whilst I may have photographed this stretch many times it is a bit like the Southwell Trail - there is always something that catches my eye and makes me reach for the camera.

I guess if I delved closely into my photo archive I would see some very similar compositions and even repeats of the same subject, but this type of photography is like listening to a favourite piece of music. Every time I play it, I enjoy it.

On the canal towpath is a metal barrier which reinforces the canal bank. The outer coating has rusted and there are some patches that look like they have been painted in the past  - great for abstracts but not so great for the strange looks from people trying to work out why someone would photograph an old metal barrier!

Reflections along the canal are a must. They are fun to capture as the water is constantly moving. A bit of wind, or the wake of barge, or even a bird swimming by, will change the look of an image:

Not far from the canal is a wall of street art. It is refreshed regularly by talented artists. The colours are always fantastic:

Lastly, the Nottingham Contemporary building which I pass on the way back to the main shopping area: