Arts Building revisited

Arts Building, designed by ABK Architects and completed in 1979, was the second structure I visited with my cameras when I started to work on ‘Unfulfilled Dreams’ project in 2011. 
A week ago I got back to Arts building during Open House 2019 festival. As all of you already know I have soft spot for well designed concrete buildings, especially these from 60s and 70s. 

There was a few beautiful new buildings on my list this year but I had to change plans and eventually ended up with Arts Building only … Fantastic tour with lots of interesting information and possibility to capture bits and pieces in my black and white squares.

Lights was beautifully dim. Exactly as it have to be in such objects. I had Delta 400 loaded in my Rollei but all was exposed at 1600 which was absolutely enough. 

Photographs taken back then (2011) are different and like it. I can clearly see how my approach to project and vision how it should looks like changes  I probably would photograph again every single building I visited since 2011 but it will stay as it is with small updates every now and then. Like this time…

© Artur Sikora

© Artur Sikora

© Artur Sikora

© Artur Sikora

© Artur Sikora

© Artur Sikora

You can read my blog post about Arts Building in 2011 using this link: Art of concrete .

Here is also link to 'Unfulfilled Dreams' project so you can see more photographs I made in there back then: Unfulfilled Dreams .

Thank you!

Heading North...

Waking up at 6am on Saturday morning sounds like a crazy plan considering the fact that I do it every day during the week. This time however it was something special on the way - A photo trip with my good friend and excellent photographer Jim Leonard, who came up with this idea a few weeks earlier.

The day before I packed my Rollei, Holga (yes, just two cameras this time) and box of films. It was still dark and pleasantly mild when I left my place. An hour later I met Jim. We packed our bags into the trunk and soon after that we’ve been on the road to Belfast. 

Forecast was rather unfavourable. Once we arrived, to our surprise, Belfast was literally shining. The streets were filled with beautiful light reflecting off buildings and illuminating surroundings. It couldn't be better.

Belfast © Artur Sikora

I don’t remember when last time I was wandering the streets just for pure photography and enjoyment, without any other particular purpose. 

What made it special however was the fact that we were not on our own. We have met a fantastic local photographers who showed us Belfast from completely different perspective - Sean Allen, Patrick O’Lean and Alistair Prentice. 

(Links to their websites/public profiles are at the bottom of this text so please have a look) 

Walking, photographing and listen to great stories... Just a perfect day! It was also a great experience to see them in action portraying strangers on the streets in such an interesting manner and with full confidence. I was surprised how positive all approached strangers reacted asked to being photographed.

And of course I was the odd one avoiding people and pointing my camera towards concrete and brick walls ;)

Belfast, Gate in Peace Wall © Artur Sikora

Belfast, Peace Wall © Artur Sikora 

Belfast, Divis Street © Artur Sikora

Belfast © Artur Sikora

This is just a glimpse of what I photographed over there. Still have 2 rolls of films to process (out of 5 in total). This includes photographs of couple of architectural gems. 

As usually all images will be presented soon on my social media: FB, Twitter, Instagram and also LinkedIn. 

At the end we visited Ulster Museum and extraordinary exhibition 'Temporary/Permanent' by Frankie Quinn, marking the 50th anniversary of the erection of the first Belfast peace wall. Exhibition is open until 10th of November so go for it if you will be in the area.

© Artur Sikora

I guess we were very lucky with weather. Late afternoon, as we got back into the car, heavy rain started...  

At the end I wanted to thank here Jim, Sean, Patrick and Alistair for wonderful day!

Please don’t forget to check links below:

Jim Leonard:

FB page:  https://www.facebook.com/jimleonardphotography/
Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/jim_leonard53/

Sean Allen:

Website: https://rambleswithmycamera.com
FB page:  https://www.facebook.com/RamblesWithMyCamera/

Patrick O'Loan:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patrickoloan/

Alistair Prentice:

FB page: https://www.facebook.com/StreetStrangersOfNorthernIreland/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alistairprenticephoto/

Thank you!