Strolling and Street Art in Sheffield

We went to Yorkshire Cosplay Con in Sheffield a few weeks ago so Phillip could do his thing and take lots of awesome cosplay photos (check out his ColobusYeti Instagram feed to see some of his work!). He got two press passes so I went along as the plus one. Now I like a little manga, anime and sci-fi, 2 days of it though is kinda not my thing. So one of the days I took myself exploring the streets of Sheffield so I could see some of its famed street art. Visual art means lots of photos and not so many words…a change from many of my posts. Hope you enjoy!

 

Charles Street:

 

Brown Lane:

 

Brown Street:

On the wall of the Rutland Arms

 

Sidney Street:

Even the skips are arty!

 

Sylvester Street car park:

 

Arundel Street:

 

Here I found a suitable arty place to stop for lunch called ‘The Holt‘ where I had a rather scrumptious TLT (smoked tofu, lettuce and tomatoes with vegan mayo) and a lovely soy cappuccino.

 

 

Street art is not for everyone and some will see this as plain old grafitti possibly. I’m not a fan of someone simply lazily spraying their name without any real effort put in to it. This though felt like it gave character and life to this part of Sheffield and I for one loved it.

Harry Brearley – inventor of stainless steel

 

 

Discovering a love of urban photography

I didn’t really start wanting to take ‘proper’ photographs until I was in my thirties.  Sure I took holiday photos and snapped away at events such as birthdays or whenever one of my pets did something fun/cute.  Nothing serious though.  My interest was created when Phillip aka ColobusYeti started taking photography seriously and I saw how good the photos he was producing were.  Mine seemed so poor next to his!  So I bought myself a decent camera and got photographing.

Over time I started getting a feel for the type of photographs I enjoyed taking – landscapes, bare trees in winter, small or quirky details that I would spot in the world around me.  Not people though…no no no…definitely not for me!  I liked taking photographs and playing around with them on Lightroom, did I love it though?  No that did not happen until our travels and I fell in love with urban photography.  And I fell hard.

I had often dabbled with urban photography, yet it wasn’t really until we lived in Tokyo for 6 months though and I walked the streets exploring the city I had fallen in love with that I really felt that this was me, this was what I wanted to photograph.  Cities, buildings, streets – all that evidence of people’s lives and impact on their surroundings is simply, well inspiring to me.  So I thought I would share some of my favourites from my travels – hope you enjoy them.

Oh yes…and I also discovered how much I like black and white photography….

Adventures & Photographs at Hadrian’s Wall

One of the reasons we moved to our present spot in Cumbria after our ‘big adventure’ was because we would be surrounded by so many amazing places.  Whichever direction you head, wonders await ~ Scotland, Northumberland, the Pennines, the Lake District and Yorkshire plus all the places right on our very doorstep in border country. Our intention on moving here was that we would head off out and about in our little camper on a regular basis to see the sights, a day trip here and an overnight stay there. Note I say ‘intention’… we got rather bogged down mentally last year and ended up not really seeing or doing much at all.

We decided this had to change for two reasons.  Firstly we don’t plan to remain here in Cumbria for too much longer and want to see as much as we can before we say goodbye to this gorgeous area.  Secondly we have set up a microstock portfolio (Phillip photographs and I tag/submit) to aid our alternative lifestyle dream.  So once a week our trusty Bongo sets off on a mini adventure with the double bonus of us seeing our surroundings and getting photos for the portfolio. Sometimes I simply enjoy seeing and walking, other times I sit myself in the Bongo and either tag photos or tap away at some writing (at this time of year normally with a nice warm blanket round me and gloves on!).

A recent focus for us has been Hadrian’s Wall. For some reason the Wall really speaks to me. I love seeing it, being near it and imagining what it must have looked like when it was built and in use. We are lucky to have some amazing sections of the wall near us with stunning views over the surrounding countryside and some (occasionally sneaky) free places to park!

The closest bit of Wall to us is at Banks East Turret and we always take any visitors for a quick visit here as the views are amazing (if the weather is being nice that is, being Cumbria it usually isn’t!) and we are slightly proud of the fact that it is only about 10 minutes away from our home.  It is bizarrely where we got our Glastonbury tickets in October 2015 as they went on sale mere days after we moved and we had no internet at home!

Heading further east there are some lovely long stretches of Wall at Birdoswald Roman Fort and over the border into Northumberland.  A couple of weeks ago we discovered one of those sneaky free parking places I mention at the amazing Walltown Crags.  This has to be my favourite spot so far.  The Crags are gloriously rugged and the Wall snakes its way up and down them.  Add to this the bleakness of the surrounding landscape and well…I am a happy bunny.  I quite happily tromped around for a while relishing being there in the cold, fresh air and then settled down in the Bongo to work whilst Phillip was shooting awesome shots like this.

Hope you enjoyed our little Roman jaunt ~ stay tuned to see where our Bongo adventures take us next!

All photos in this post taken by ColobusYeti and available at Fotolia

Artistic Interpretation: Red

After my original idea for this week didn’t work out (the post box I was planning to use was for some inexplicable reason wearing a dead hare that day), I cast my eye around my home for inspiration.  It was a good chance to play around with some close up shots and I ended up with a few photos I was quite pleased with. The photo above was the one I selected as my winner and here are my two runner ups.

So now for this week we are back to the people photography…and a head shot. Not really knowing any people in our new area, my victim…I mean model..will be my husband.  It will be odd taking a photo of a photographer!

Dogwood Week 2

 

Traditional Landscape

Here is my photograph for week 2: traditional landscape.  The weather had been against us here in ‘sunny’ Cumbria in terms of landscape shots.  There was a break in the rain so we ventured out to see what we could come up with in less than ideal conditions.  Found this shot on the edge of Miltonrigg Woods just up the road from where I live.  I love this shot more and more every time I see it.

The theme for this week is Red.  There are a few ideas pottering around in my head…nothing as yet decided on though.  I think I have a good idea germinating, just decided how to carry it out and what part of my photography skills I want to focus on developing this week.  Check back later to see what I end up with!