A depressing afternoon - a photo on Flickriver

            Victoria Road, Bradmore, Wolverhampton, 1st July 1997.

I used to live not far from here, and hearing that the old fashioned streetlights in this area were soon to go, I decided to take a few snaps. As can be seen, it was a dull and thoroughly wet afternoon that I chose, but the poor lighting conditions caused by the overcast skies had fooled the streetlights into switching on prematurely; all good ingredients for a gritty image I thought. 

Suitably attired, I made my way to this location at the bottom of Victoria Road, and set up my tripod to steady the camera for a longer than normal exposure. As I was setting up, a man who I regular saw walking his dog in the area, stopped and asked what I was doing taking pictures on such an atrocious day? 

I really couldn’t think of an easy way of explaining why I wanted to photograph 50-year old street lights day-burning on a rainy day, and didn’t want to get into a convoluted conversation on the subject, so just said that I was taking a few arty pictures of the streets around. He made some humorous comment, smiled and walked on with his dog. By now, my camera and I were getting quite wet, so I quickly took a couple of exposures at different settings and made for home, abandoning any further attempts to take pictures. 

A few months later, I learnt that the man who'd stopped to speak to me on that dreadful afternoon had been taken ill, and had suddenly died. He wasn’t that old, and it seemed so terribly sad. Looking at this picture, I can still hear the rain beating down on the hood of my coat, that hollow gurgling sound of fast flowing water running down the drains, and of the fleeting conversation with the man who wasn’t long for this world; all quite depressing really. Oh, and the old streetlights, they didn’t get pulled out until December 2003; I saved the lantern and swanneck from off the one nearest the camera!

Taken on: December 14, 2009

Tags:

Victoria Road

Wolverhampton

1997

rainy

depressing

overcast

skies

sky

1st July 1997

Austin Maestro

Maestro

car

metro

mini « less

Sets appears in: • Cars, vans, and bikes • Rain more » • Wolverhampton « less

Groups appears in: • Wolverhampton as it was. • WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE !

Stats: 6,006 views / 8 comments

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