“Red Boxes” — Two red boxes on the sidewalk below a street art panel, Aberdeen.
This is another street photograph from central Aberdeen, Scotland, a bit west the Victoria Dock. There are many old and narrow streets here that twist and turn in interesting ways. Some of the streets feature a lot of street art and, unlike in some places I’ve visited and photographed, much of it stands apart for better viewing and is rarely defaced by graffiti.
“Graffiti Wall and Bars” — Complex paint patterns on a graffiti wall with metal bars, Ghent.
This is another photograph from the “graffiti alley” in Ghent, Belgium. This short, narrow walkway connecting two streets is covered with street art, tags, and graffiti of all sorts. The imagery covers the walls higher than you can reach and even extends to the sidewalk beneath your feet. If you are lucky you might find someone creating new work when you visit.
A lot of the work is text-based and/or representational. That’s interesting stuff, but I like to take a step back from the individual pieces and consider the layers and colors that build up over time. Older work is partly obscured by newer stuff, and eventually it seems that a lot of the old material simply disappears beneath the new. Here, as in some of my other photographs of this site, I decided to move close and focus on the abstract components — the broad strokes, the colors, and the surfaces to which the paint is applied.
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“Street Art, Antwerp” — An old structure is decorated with street art along the waterfront in Antwerp, Begium.
The photograph comes from Antwerp. We were in Belgium at the end of May and beginning of June. Adding Belgium to a trip that was mostly in Portugal and Spain was a bit of an afterthought, but we managed to stay in Antwerp, Bruges, and Brussels, and make a day trip to Ghent. It was a lot to see in one week, and with more time we might have spent extra days in Antwerp and Brussels.
On the day that I made this photograph we headed out on one of our typical wandering walks. It took us towards the waterfront, where it appears that some sort of long term redevelopment project is underway. An urban walkway traverses much of the area, but there’s also still a certain amount of interesting street art.
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“Grapevine and Door, Provesende” — A volunteer grapevine grows against an old wall next to a doorway, Provesende, Portugal.
Our May week-long walk in the hills above Portugal’s Douro River Valley began in the small town of Pinhão — with a rather stiff climb from the river up into those hills at Provesende. (We used Portugal Green Walks to organize the trip, and I give them a lot of credit for designing the trek to start with a short, steep day… and conclude the trip at a place with a stunning view overlooking the Douro.)
Provesende was one of many charming small towns we passed through on the walk. Most are quiet places, with old buildings and narrow streets, and surrounded by vineyards. If I recall correctly, this scene was part of a small rural building on the edge of town. The textures and colors of the old building attracted my attention, as did the solitary, opportunistic grapevine growing from a crack at the base of the wall.
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