Friday 27 March 2015

Upping the pace again

After getting back into the swing of things, I decided to up the pace a bit. I'm hoping that I will be able to finish by the end of April or early May.

I have a few pockets of areas where I have a few remaining streets to shoot. One of these is behind Barbican, around St. Bart's hospital, and I tried to complete to this area one morning before work.

The first street I shot was Bartholomew Close which is a  longish U shaped road. I had been around here a couple of times and was not really inspired. On this occasion I managed a couple of shots. The first is just a bike rack and a puddle which really doesn't sound very exciting, but I'm really pleased with this shot. I think it is a good example of how my eye for detail has improved over the course of this project and I think this is partly down to having to take a picture of every single street - finding something worthy of raising the camera is not always easy. I don't always get a good image or one that I am overly happy with, but I think doing that on every street is nigh on impossible.




An example of where my eye for detail was not quite so good was just around the corner on Halfmoon Court. There was not a lot to shoot here, but I decided to take the image below of some signs outside a car park. I think the main thing that intrigued me here was the sign saying "Dry Falling main car park" which sounds a bit ominous and like it may not be a great place to stand. I had no idea what it meant, but couldn't help looking upwards. On googling the term now I think it may have something to do with fire protection equipment.


One other street I had previously missed out is Smithfield Street, which as the name suggests, is close to Smithfield market.



That was all of  I manged to shoot on that particular morning. There are two streets left to photograph in that area, both of which are partly closed off due to construction work and which I have so far struggled for inspiration.

A couple of days later I wandered around the Cannon Street Area for a bit. The are a couple of  streets here named after a Laurence Pountney,  presumably they are named after the St. Laurence Pountney church. This church is no longer, and was destroyed during the great fire of London. However an eye witness claims that the church fire started from with inside, implying arson. Laurence Pountney Lane is one of the couple of street I photographed on this day, where I shot some shadows from a tree.



From here a little alley leads to Laurence Pountney Hill (still to photograph) and Suffolk Lane. The shot below was taken at the side of Prudential's headquarters. The footpath leads to a bridge that crosses Upper Thames Street.


Also close by is Gophir Lane.


On the other side of Cannon Street Station is Dowgate Hill, named after the Dowgate Ward of the city.


A bit further along Cannon Street, I came to Queen Street which I had already photographed previously. The image below is not particularly good, but I liked the fact that the Dominos delivery motorbikes where all in a line leaning over, a bit like dominoes.


Walking back down Dowgate Hill, and crossing Upper Thames Street, leads onto Cousin Lane.



I then headed back up the hill a little and turned onto College Street.


College Street then turns into Skinners Lane, where I took my favorite image of the day.


On my way back to the office I took a minor detour to Cheapside to photograph Crown Court. This was a little courtyard that I had previously missed and only noticed when filling in my map.


Thursday 5 March 2015

Back on the horse again

After almost a month of pottering around the house and working from home, it was good to get out and about with my camera. It was also good to walk around an area that was new to me, or new to this project anyway -  a triangular area between Queen Victoria Street, Cheapside and St. Paul's Cathedral.

I will start off with my favorite image from this day, which was of a very friendly butcher at Jamie Oliver's Barbecoa restaurant on Watling Street, a stones throw from the cathedral. Watling Street is was an ancient trackway that ran from Canterbury to St. Albans and later extended to Wroxeter by the Romans. More details are at wikipedia.



I had actually started off this little outing on St. Stephens Row, which is behind Mansion House and just outside the area described above.



I then made my way onto Queen Victoria Street and to the rather challenging Sise Lane, which is not much longer than what you can see in the picture below. I think this image falls into "best of a bad job" category,

Round the corner from here is Pancras Lane. The following image is from the site of the former St. Pancras church which was destroyed in the Great Fire of London. Its now a lovely little garden of which more detail can be found at the website its creators Studio Weave.


Next up was Well Court, which owes its name to seven watering holes sunk there during Roman Times. Excavation of this alley has led the discovery of many roman building remains and artifacts.



Walking through the arch at the end of Well Court, leads to Bow Lane, named after the St, Mary-le-Bow church on Cheapside.


Just off of Bow Lane Bow Churchyard, which surrounds St. Mary-le-Bow church. Im quite pleased with the image below, even if I do say so myself.



My final image of the this outing was back on Queen Victoria Street.



I  had quite a bit of holiday left over from last year, so took a day off to do some photography. However the weather was awful. I did manage to get a few good shots, but most were on the south side of the Thames and therefore not in the city and not part of this project. The only shot within the city that I managed to get was on Carter Lane.


And that is all I managed to take in February, so below is the updated map.