Under the Bridge

There’s graffiti and then there’s graffiti. Sadly, around Leeds there tends to be more ‘so-and-so waz ere’ graffiti than Banksy. That said, I’m a big fan of graffiti done well. Inner city train journey’s are certainly made less boring with a variety of graffiti.

Clearly the tagger has a certain style and flair with the spray can, and I like the green and blue used, but it does lack a certain pazazz. The one below is on the same bridge and is a typical example of common-all-garden inner city graffiti, which is why people view graffiti as a blight on the urban landscape instead of the art form it can be.

Compare the shots above with this snapshot from Memphis. Wouldn’t our cities be brighter with more of this?

A shame, because Leeds, like a lot of cities, has a lot of dull, grey concrete that needs livening up.

North Street

This small section of Leeds has been on my photographic radar for a while and I’ve waited until I had some colour film loaded before heading down there. I was lucky really as I wanted someone walking past of the shop front and had two cyclists come by one after the other.

I love the colours of the shops along this stretch, though I did miss out some of the greens of the Paradise Balti, so I’ll probably go back again some time. (I have a couple of other ideas for this stretch of road anyway!)

Ascension

Whenever I think of ascending, I tend to think of Stargate SG-1. It’s one of the few shows I can watch again and again. More so than other sci-fi shows.

This shot is far more mundane. I was eying up the escalator waiting for someone to come into shot. This guy was waiting for me to take a picture, so I pretending to take it, and waited for him to take the escalator before taking the shot.

Taken at The Core shopping centre, Leeds.