Great Pulteney Street in Bath

My Walk this Week – Bath

My walk this week is around Bath in the south west of England – a town famous for its Roman baths and spas and also for its place in literature, specifically the wonderful classic books of Jane Austen – see here.

Bath from Holburne Museum

I was in Bath was to go see the Tapestry: Here and Now exhibition at the Holburne Museum and attend tapestry weaving symposium held there – The Narrative of Tapestry. The view above is from the museum looking down Great Pulteney Street. Continue reading

Architecture and Art in Cardiff City – Reviewing the Walk

Looking through the entrance archway of Cardiff City Hall towards the end of my walk this week and the National Museum of Wales, I have completed my circuit of the rectangle of classical, brutalist and functional architecture that makes up this cultural and educational sector at the approach to the city centre.

Completing the walk in the museum itself and the Artes Mundi exhibition (already visited three times), I can only recommend a visit to the show before it ends on 26th February.

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Mixed Media in Cardiff City

My walk this week featured a range of mixed media. From the natural mossy trees in perspective and their shadows on buildings to a classical architectural foreground with a more modernist tower in the background; the intricacy of sculptures and the simplicity of the structures within walls along with urban pedestrian functionality. It makes for quite a mixed bag and all to be seen within a hundred yards or so in the centre of Cardiff City.

Cardiff tree perspective

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My Walk this Week – Culture, Classical and Concrete

My walk this week takes a tour around the classical and concrete block of cultural, educational and municipal buildings in the centre of Cardiff, Wales. Amgueddfa in Welsh or museum in English, this first image shows a segment of the display block alongside the National Museum of Wales which currently shows the banner for the Arts Mundi 7 exhibition. This is a biannual international art exhibition which we have seen since it started 14 years ago. The exhibition has one of the largest prizes in the art world (£40,000).

Started in Cardiff, it is a an event of which Wales can be justly proud. It ends in cardiff on 26th February and I will be trying to get to see it for a fourth time before that. John Akomfrah is the justifiable winner on this occasion but the whole exhibition, while being largely video based, is well worth giving the time to tour fully.

Amgueddfa / Museum

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Hereford Cityscape – Reviewing the Walk

Back at the start of my walk this week and you can listen to the soundscape while viewing the images. The image below shows two parts of the same alleyway – despite the graffiti the walkthrough is kept pretty clean.

Hereford walkway

Hereford City Walk Soundscape

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Features of the Modern Cityscape

Returning towards the starting point of my walk this week I passed All Saints Church of England church (which is also a cafe) and admired the stonework of the architecture. The patterns and textures of old stone combined with the insertion of more recent stone worked well for me. I was going to take a detail shot of some of the patterns and as I was selecting my angle a person slipped into the frame and huddled in the corner of the church for a smoke.

This is a distinct feature of any modern cityscape in Britain today – individuals or small groups of smokers huddling in corners to keep out of the wind or rain – it seems to me to defeat the purpose and is what enabled me to give up after our first child was born. Giving up smoking is not an easy thing to do but going outside every time I wanted a cigarette certainly helped me to do so. Good luck to those of you who are trying.

Church wall and smoker

Church wall and smoker

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Seeing the Signs and Hereford Marketplace

Yesterday I ignored (or cropped) the signs, today I am looking at them. My walk this week around Hereford city centre has returned me to the alley that precedes Church Street and leads out into the city’s markettplace.

Seeing the Signs

Seeing the Signs

I have a soundscape for this walk which, as with the photography, was recorded on my iPhone. The clip below is one I recorded in this marketplace – it was not a market day but there were still plenty of people about.

Hereford City Centre

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NB If you are wondering what is going on in the panorama shot of the market place below, this is the result of using the “pano” facility on the iPhone in a scene where there is movement of people. The camera is panned around to take multiple shots of the scene which are then stitched together by the software. Without any “ghost” correcting, this can be the effect you get – it looks pretty odd but rest assured the pregnant lady has not been chopped in half other than in the image.

Ignoring the Signs – Walls, Flowers and Brickwork

Not so much ignoring the signs as cropping them out – all these photos required me to either choose an angle or make a crop that avoided the inevitable street signs for restricted parking, no entry, and restricted access. I couldn’t avoid the cars and I didn’t want to avoid the peeling paint of the gable end brick wall to this building of formal design that is typical of this part of Hereford City centre.

I like the patterns, colours and textures of the wall at least as much as I do the flower displays.

Hereford City Walk-17

Hereford Houses

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