inner city blues

seeing as i started-up a new flickr group handsworth, for my recent photos of the area(and because there wasn't already a flickrgroup for handsworth!), i thought i'd put up this list of some of the other groups for the city(drawn-up by pete ashton, over the last few years), and maintained by tim ellis

Birmingham
Birmingham: It's Not Shit
Birmingham Exposure
Metroblogging Birmingham
Birmingham Post and Mail
Social
Birmingham Flickrmeets
Black Country Flickrmeets
Regional
Bearwood
Bournville
Broad Street
Digbeth
Edgbaston
Erdington
Hall Green
Jewellery Quarter
Kings Heath
Kings Norton
Longbridge
Moseley
Selly Oak
Stirchley and Cotteridge
Sutton Park
Yardley
Interactive
Birmingham Chain Photos
Guess Where Birmingham
Themed
A45 Road Birmingham/Solihull/Coventry
Art Deco West Midands
Aston Villa
Birmingham Bicycles
Birmingham Botanical Gardens
Birmingham Canals
Birmingham Christmas market
Birmingham City FC
Birmingham - Forward (for the city Coat of Arms)
Birmingham Graffiti and Street Art
Birmingham Library The Current Library - in Chamberlain Square
Birmingham Music Live
Birmingham Parkland
Birmingham Street Name Signs
Birmingham Tornado
Birmingham Through the Viewfinder
Boring Brick Buildings In Birmingham
The BT Tower, Birmingham
Concrete Birmingham
The Cube: Birmingham
Favourite Birmingham buildings
Haunted Birmingham
The Library of Birmingham The New Library - in Centenary Square
Lomo Birmingham
Made In Birmingham
Number 50 Bus Route
Public Art in Public Transport
The Pubs of Birmingham
Purple Mermaid (Uni of B'ham Circus Society)
Rockabilly Birmingham
Selfridges Birmingham
Sporting West Midlands
Style Birmingham
Suburban Birmingham
Supersonic Festival
West Midlands Cafe Society
West Midland Hard Core (DIY photography)
West Midland Urban Explorers
The Yellow Wall
Live in the Midlands (Music gigs)
Relevant
Red Brick Buildings (tagged)

as i've said - this list is by pete, who started off the birmingham flickrmeet group, back in may 2005, and you can buy his stuff here.
tim updates it here on a regular basis.

dirty old town

the first outing for the new lens, to a specific place - the april flickrmeet, and i'm impressed with the results and the way the lens handled(nowhere near as unwieldy as i thought it would be).



spent an enjoyable afternoon wandering around beneath spaghetti junction(if that is at all possible) and along the adjacent canals(i like old canals and the stuff that they visually entail), and after seeing the gasometers, had "i saw my love by the gaswork lights" stuck in my head awhile...



i really pushed the envelope as far as the images were concerned, and it was actually quite relaxing having to work stuff out - unlike the manic frenzy that can result from using the olympus.
it was a damn good day weatherwise too - although i had hoped for some dramatic clouds(i had to really tweak the images to get some semblance of drama - see above)



and i got to go overboard with post-processing techniques i'd just learned, such as duotone/lith/HDR... regretably, i didn't take a panoramic image - but i think with the wide-angle being used so extensively, it would be over-egging the pudding...



but i got a whole bunch of favourite images on the walk.
after traversing the canal and some bleak walkways under the flyovers, we came across a yard full of bridge scaffolding which was like an elephant's graveyard.



people perked-up, and i for one started all over again... excellent location and kudos to those who organised it all... i've seen some pretty damn good shots by other people from the day too.

ah - it all ended too soon though, i'd just got into chatting to new faces in the post-pubmeet and it was time to get a lift home.
i've spent most of last week in photoshop, working on the good stuff and deleting the chaff, whilst getting onto my new-wave sounds mojo: currently i'm listening to edge of the seventies - which is like listening to a late 70's kid jensen show on the evening radio... minus the dj chatter of course.



still to come - landscape images of the city taken from high up(a high rise building block and a carpark), a trip to a construction site in the city(with some half finished buildings), a run down churchyard in handsworth, some macro work, and... i've offered up my portrait services to a local paranormal group(should be usefull for getting some dramatic portrait shots!!!)