Today was going to be a Week 6 Mid Way Review of the project “The Matter Of The Black Country”, you can see the slides I produced in this post ahead of the session.midway review prep
Got into uni and Sam wasn’t there in his usual spot on the tall table. He didn’t arrive so we were asking Dan if he was off. After a while it was evident that Sam was not going to be arriving so we did what we needed to do to move on with the project “The Matter Of The Black Country”
Go West
For me, as described on the last slide of my review, I had now got the chance to shoot in West Bromwich. I was already most of the way there, being in Wolverhampton. I had planned that if we were to continue production of the project work that I would likely go to West Brom in the afternoon so had packed my bag into the car with both my Leica Q3 and Leica M6 but I wanted to keep the films I had left for my trip away in the coming week so I left my M6 in the boot.
A quick drive across the Black Country on the way to the town of West Bromwich and I was amazed at how many industrial units, car dealers, breakers yards, builders merchants, derelict pubs, pubs changed into Asian restaurants, hair stylists and many tool hire companies. It really is an area of entrepreneurs and self employed people making the best of what they have by servicing the needs of their communities. This is not quite the same as in my home town of Shrewsbury where there are some units like this but mostly on the outskirts with very few making their way that close to the town centres.
I found a car park near the centre on Temple Street and after parking up and paying on the phone based app I went for a wander. I had no idea where I was going, the only research I’d done quickly, the night before on the town was that there was a place I’d seen on Midlands Today called “The Public” a huge Black building with fuschia pink windows set in it.
I set off in the direction I thought might be the best way to explore and immediately found some older style buildings along with some small back alley businesses. A small Evangelical Church built into an old shop, a small wood turning and furniture making business in an old garage and a mini market with a black and white cat sat outside waiting for a rat to appear.
These photos are on manual focus on the Q3 all set, for some reason to 1/1000 sec and f/1.7 aperture. The manual focus mode means I don’t get randomly selected focus points but the actual subject I set out to photograph when I picked it up. These photos are warm up images and whilst they didn’t capture my imagination a lot, I was long past the wood turner when I realised I should have stopped to ask if I could make a photo of him at work. No flash on the camera so it likely wouldn’t have worked out.
Gold
After stepping out onto the main drag I came across Society House, sounded like a good name for a community building, until I got home and researched it, finding out that it was originally the headquarters for the West Bromwich Building Society. The building had a wonderful concrete structure with the black water marked top edges to the slabs and then the windows set into it were all gold and reflective. It was like a Bond Villain’s idea of a nice building, or a bit like Donald’s Tower in New York. It’s currently up for sale and will likely be bought soon to be converted into apartments.
Moving into this road I noticed a huge concrete tower in the distance, so like a good little brutalism fan, off I went to get some images. As is usually the case, spotting something to lead me on a trail normally ends up with me finding all manner of unexpected surprises. As was the case this time, for as I headed towards the big tower I came across “The Public” and a few other buildings that I found interesting.
The annoying thing about the chicken.com shop is that the website isn’t really their own, it’s being camped on by someone who owns the domain. The Barclays Bank was opposite the Town Hall where I got the photo of the telephone box next to a doorway designed to fit it through. The. shops and phone box all looked a bit worse for wear and the people in the Barclays picture were a veritable mix.
Public Enemy
“The Public” is a huge building which currently hosts Central St Michael’s Sixth Form College amongst other businesses. The black couloured corrugated exterior along with the weird organic shapes of the pink windows like amoeba floating on the subject reminded me of an experiment under a microscope. Even with the 28mm lens fixed onto the camera I found it difficult to take a meaningful photo of the structure as I had to go away from it to fit it in but then it was obscured by a number of trees and other street furniture.
Going around the reverse side of the building I found a lovely effect of the sunshine on the corrugations that was creating a pink colour in the viewfinder even on the black bits, very strange.
the whole site was tricky to capture anything worthwhile so I resorted to making a self portrait in the mirrored sections. The mirrored and curved parts were around the rear but fenced off so I couldn’t reach them and I thought never mind, I’ll go and take a look at the big tower building.
As I made my way around a detour to get towards the main target I was now fixed upon, I came across this small little solicitors office which reminded me of Shirehall Register Office in Shrewsbury, with it’s recessed, tall and narrow windows. The architecture looked familiar and yet old school too, as well as feeling out of place in amongst the nearby shopping centre complex.
I like to imagine what has happened in buildings in the past, was this an old register office, if it has always been a solicitors, how many people have been there to divorce, or sue someone over a mistake made. `There are millions of stories that the walls could tell if they were able. But we have to remain content that we might get a glimpse in through those tall windows.
Reflections
As I walked on, I ended up exploring the other back corner of the “Public” and found that I was no longer fenced off from the reflective surfaces. Here we go I thought, lots of funky colours but I never did find a particular phot that I was overly happy with.
I do like the colours of the wheeled bins in the metal surface, and even when the driver of the car had removed it, it still. didn’t do much to improve the scene. I decided that I should make another self-portrait as I am always looking for images of myself to send to other people. This one was inside a location where a, no doubt, very important poster was taped with bright red gaffer tape. I framed myself in the rectangular frame and caught an image that I can use if need be in the future.
Shoppers Paradise
As I continued on my merry way to the huge building with big text on the front I came across lots of little shops along the main market on High Street. Thinking back to my review and the work on “Shit Names For Shops” I started noticing other shops that might have fitted into the bill, and also reminiscent of Tom Hicks, Dirty Brum and T_Worth work on Instagram.
There were some people in these photos too, shoppers on the high street out for a bargain or extra mega bargain.
Tower
As I continued on my way, after getting a few scowls off people I found my way to West Plaza. The massive tower building
The stripes on this building for each floor and the huge BOND WOLFE on the front and back of the building were captivating and I wanted to capture some good photos if I could here.
Whilst walking towards it on the opposite side of Bull Street I was holding the camera up to see how close I needed to get when a flock of pigeons made their way straight for me, and thus was captured my favourite image of the day.
The buildings in the foreground show the markety type High Street, the small little band stand cover and the large tower in the distance. All this with a Hitchcockian amount of birds coming my way. It was time to continue the odyssey towards the building.
I got to the base of the building and it was a bit tatty and uncared for so I had a good wander around and looked at it from all angles. There were parts where the damp had not been draining away properly causing some moss to grow on the face of the building. I cannot find out much about the history of the building, originally built in 1965, but according to Birmingham Post in 2003 Bond Wolfe acquired the building and some of it was let to Days Inn hotel chain, this building with the smaller building attached were sold in 2003 for a cost of around £12 million. It’s interesting to see that the old Premier Inn signs have left a remnant on the very top floor of the ten storey building.
Homeward Bound
After a bit of time spent studying this building through the electronic viewfinder it was time to head home, with a. few extra steps on the Apple Watch. Then go through the photos of other street images where I’d captured the residents of the town as they went about their business. I felt a little suspicious wandering around taking photos as I was getting a bit of side eye.
I headed back to the car and on the way came across an old Telephone Exchange so grabbed a couple of shots of this before I realised there was some high intensity drug taking happening not far away, so I ensured I didn’t pont my camera towards the five people and walked away with a hidden burst of pace.
Once back I prepared a couple of images to go onto Instagram and have a think about the images that I’d captured. The photos of West Brom obviously capture the Black Country but do they capture my emotions and interest. I feel no real connection to the place as I have no history there and the only two places I found remotely interesting there were the Wet Plaza and The Public.
I’m not sure that this will help me in my project for Level 5 and preparations for a show in January 2025 at Centrala in Digbeth. It was an interesting place to go and see some more of the Black Country but I can’t say it did a lot for me.
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