I was walking with a couple of friends along the Bridgewater Canal near Castlefield in Manchester and I stopped to take this photo. I must be developing a photographer's eye because I knew this view would pose for an evocative portrait of a great city.
I like the way each feature of the landscape in the frame of this photograph maps Manchester's urban development. We have the 18th-century canal, the old mill, the Victorian railway viaduct, 20th-century-style car-park & housing and, of course, that affronting 21st-century Deansgate tower. This is a portrait that depicts Manchester keeping up with the times and utilizing its resources for economic growth. Whilst traditionally Manchester has been regarded as a industrial town, since the 1990s it has become better known for being home to one of the most successful football clubs of all time and a hotbed for property development (as symbolized in the Deansgate Tower...a sky-high hotel with a large penthouse at the top).
I'll come back here for a drink one summer's evening. My friend lives round the corner.
***
No comments:
Post a Comment