Alleyways and Tunnels

Change is as good as a rest, so they say.

I feel like I've been revamping my blog for a while, but just starting to see changes.
Behind the scenes, I've been adding more photos to older posts, designing a new header and generally pottering about. I should have been adding new blog posts at the same time, but there is always a price for creativity!

Anyway welcome any new readers I've picked up, thanks for visiting!
My blog is about being a city dweller- things that I've seen and my random experiences. I always find myself in alleyways and tunnels, hence the name.

My new header was shot when exploring an underground World War 2 gun emplacement above Karori in Wellington, N.Z. If I'm without my camera, I try remember the atmosphere and small details, it could end up as a collaged perspective!

I can draw with a ruler, so rely on collage to fill in the details. Any snippets I use I try to disguise their origins with colouring pencils, ink or by photocopying to fade the details.
For my efforts, I have many blunt coloured pencils and several overflowing shoe boxes of cuttings. Photoshop is the icing on the cake as it makes the image cleaner and stronger in contrast.

When I'm not being creative, I write articles, do fact research, bit of retail, blog and study lighting. What a crazy year 2009 has been so far!

Alleyways

Finding an alley is like crawling into a tight space, there is the element of the unknown.
Buildings make the space dark even in the brightest sunlight. It is a shortcut to another street, space or shop but there is no-one else about, is it safe?

In the bigger cities, they are necessary accessways for loading docks, creative businesses and flats. In small towns they hide rubbish bins and plumbing.

I'm fascinated by their unpolished nature, dirty and gritty they are ultimate in urban decay.

The above photos are a sample of what remains me of alleyways. The first is behind Napier's Emerson Street, rotten and dripping.
The next is the side accessway of an old office building. It had chicken wire windows on the left for light.
On the right is inside a 'flat'. I was doing documentation of an old building and persuaded the tenant to let me take some photos. This is on my descent from the roof down to the flat. It was about to be demolished and was particularly wrecked.

I question safety in my exploration but you never know what you'll find or see. If I'm really worried there is always the zoom lens.