Back On The Golden Mile 1

All Images: Melton/Belgrave Road, North Leicester, December 2018

Another year goes by and, once again - I find myself accompanying yet another new cohort of GCSE Photography students on their first photo walk along Leicester's 'Golden Mile'.  In my job's more menial moments, I find myself wondering if twelve years might be more than long enough to spend charging batteries, cleaning paintbrushes and tidying up after teenagers.  However, trips out like this offer more than adequate compensation - being an opportunity to refresh my own eyes, as well as to observe students really starting to get to grips with a wealth of visual stimuli outside their immediate school environs.   

We're lucky in having one of the city's most varied and visually textured thoroughfares right on our doorstep.  Belgrave/Melton Road runs right through the heart of Leicester's culturally diverse Belgrave neighbourhood, and is renowned as both the nexus of its annual Diwali celebrations - and as the source of various oft-quoted statistics about the astounding concentrations of precious metals to be found within its numerous jewellery shops.

The reality is, far more nuanced than just that, and actually provides a fascinating spectrum of urban experience from the tawdry and down-at-heel (or even semi-derelict), to the distinctly glitzy and up-market - often within a few metres of each other.  Above all, it's a vibrant and dynamic neighbourhood High Street, in an era when, we're told - such things are in terminal decline.  One could still access pretty much any of the goods and services one might ever need there, from the downright mundane to the distinctly exotic - and often at competitive prices.

Perhaps it's the sense of everything all being lumped together in a pleasingly matter-of-fact melange of sights, sounds and aromas, that keeps the area so rich as a source of artistic stimuli.  Certainly, whilst I've done this same photo-walk numerous times in recent years - I always seem to find something new to attract my lens.

With more of our students than ever opting to study Photography - we ended up making two trips out this year, on consecutive days.  As a result, I took even more shots than normal - making this is the first of a series of related photo-essays.  This one's retail-related - featuring a range of shop fronts and window displays.  Whilst these have also featured heavily in previous years, there is a slightly new dimension to some of this year's crop.  Experimenting with a new telephoto lens meant I was able to look beyond the street elevations and glancing reflections - to also reveal certain glimpses of the interior human life beyond.  As this was often achieved at some distance, anyone depicted remained unaware and thus, totally at ease.  In fact, what pleases me most, is the way they are incorporated into the geometry of their surroundings - often only emerging after the eye has already taken in a wealth of more distracting visual incident.

More soon...