Thinking about an aesthetic that reflects Preston and doesn’t fall into the cliche of stereotypical northern tropes, is not easy. My starting point was Accrington brick buildings. The glazed red finish on Accrington brick produces an aesthetic that is both a signifier of geographical location and a northern aesthetic.
The image above, of a quirky flat-iron style building in Ashton, was captured using a 35mm prime lens, however, it didn’t create the impact I was attempting to achieve. The building was re photographed using a 23mm lens and an improvement.
This still did not produce the image I envisaged, so tried a cheap fish eye lens over a camera phone, this was the nearest to visualising my original idea.
Fish eye lens
Crown Green Bowling Clubs.
Developing this idea, led me to capture images of crown green bowling greens, something that is characteristically ‘northern’ and having the additional benefit of, in most cases, being attached to club house buildings constructed from Accrington brick. I captured some preliminary research images on my phone to determine the feasibility of this idea.
I determined that the images could be presented as types and so noted that the image must be captured from a similar position and under the same lighting conditions.
The images above were captured with a 35mm prime lens. Re photographing using a 23mm prime lens (see below) gives more flexibility in reproducing a similar building size.
Photography Blog 