Feeling frustrated by the lack of direction in my MA project, I decided to take advantage of the first sunny day of the year and take a walk around Levenshulme, my local area. I strolled down the high street and realised that what I had been looking for was right on my doorstep;
Levenshulme is a place of contradictions and contrasts: a community of middle class and working class residents; a mixture of many ethnicities, incorporating Polish, Irish, Romanian and Asian communities; a bohemian and arty suburb, with much poverty, yet one in which residents take an interest in making improvements. The residents view the area as being forgotten by the council – not poor enough to warrant the most urgent attention, yet not prosperous enough to lift itself out of the degeneration that occurs. The high street is an excellent example of this; a once-thriving commercial area that is now over-run with takeaways, pound shops and independent retailers struggling to survive. Levenshulme is a microcosm of the political and aesthetic aspects of Manchester I have been hoping to capture through my photographs.
I decided to document Levenshulme high street.
I took my Mamiya 6x6, aiming to capture each shop individually in a square frame. This turned out not to be entirely possible but I was pleased with the shots I got.
My aim now is to return to the high street over the coming year, documenting the changing face of this stretch of road. I would like to improve my aesthetic regimentation in the images, through using a tripod and possibly a 5x4 camera.