#UrbanPixel | Your Urban Art
SERIES: theurbn.com/category/feature/urbanpixel
THIS WEEK: Urban Art
NEXT WEEK: Urban Rail
#UrbanPixel – A feature series on Urban Times that documents the issues and scenes of the urban landscape through photography. By visually representing an interesting topic, concern or element of our cities, we hope to create a catalogue of solutions-based content that treats the eye. We are encouraging participation from everyone! So if you feel you have the adequate photography and backstory, send us a tweet @theurbantimes, include the #UrbanPixel hashtag, and a link to the photo piece so we can re-tweet our favorites, and include them in future #UrbanPixel posts. Read the full instructions here.
This article was edited by Charlie Hiton, Nick Ulivieri & Stephanie Kramer.
Eye Love STL // Photographer: Ben Evans of St. Louis Energized, LLC
Groovin' in the Grove // Photographer: Ben Evans of St. Louis Energized, LLC
Tagged // Photographer: Ben Evans of St. Louis Energized, LLC
Ben Evans
Eye Love STL: The art of Peat Wollaeger (“stenSOUL”) can be found all over St. Louis. This shot is from the Midtown neighborhood. See www.stensoul.com for more.
Groovin’ in the Grove: This mural, completed by youth from the Herbert Hoover Boys & Girls Club (Adams Park Unit), was completed in June 2011. It is located in “The Grove,” the unofficial name of a part of St. Louis’ Forest Park Southeast neighborhood.
Tagged: This flood wall on the Mississippi River, located just south of the Gateway Arch, is painted by numerous local artists as part of the “Paint Louis” project. See here for more.
Locks of Love // Photographer: Jenny Gai
Jenny Gai
Locks of Love: You probably don’t automatically think of these public declarations of love as traditional (a slightly ironic use of the word) installations of urban art, but these “locks of love” offer a subtle, yet powerful message and add a bit of spice to an otherwise generic bridge. The locks line the side of the Passerelle de Solférino, a pedestrian bridge in Paris where couples come to place a padlock on the side of the bridge and toss the key into the Seine as a symbol of their everlasting love. I stumbled across them on my last day wandering the streets of Paris. I admittedly had to look up the name of the bridge on GoogleMaps for this piece.
As corny as it seems, the hundreds of locks create a dazzling effect that is sure to make you smile. Because of the high volume of Parisians eager to lock their love, several others of these colorful installations have appeared on other pedestrian bridges, such as the Pont des Arts.
Abandoned Junkyard // Photographer: J Adkins
J Adkins
Abandoned Junkyard: This is a shot that took me a while to get because I didn’t know how to get to it. I drove by it everyday on my way to class and saw it from the highway. I don’t know who the artist was that did it. It was in an abandoned junkyard, or auto yard in Columbus, Ohio.
Lightning Eye Girl // Photographer: Kimberley Wooster
Girls and Special Brew // Photographer: Kimberley Wooster
In Progress // Photographer: Kimberley Wooster
Stencil // Photographer: Kimberley Wooster
Kimberley Wooster
Lightning Eye Girl: Dove Street, Bristol. Taken with a vintage Olympus Trip 35 on expired Agfa 200 iso film.
Girls and Special Brew: Brunswick Square, Bristol. Taken with a vintage Olympus Trip 35 on expired Agfa 200 iso film.
In Progress: See No Evil Festival (urban art festival), Bristol. Taken with a vintage LC-A (lomo) on expired Fuji Reala 100 iso film.
Stencil: Redland, Bristol. Taken with a vintage LC-A (lomo) on cross processed Agfa Precisa slide film.
Poser // Photographer: John Cousert
John Cousert
Poser: This shot was taken on the far south side of Chicago in a disclosed location around 55th & State St. It is indoors and was taken at night I had to us off camera flash. I put my SB-700 on a stand camera left and about 5ft high pointed at the wall. I had to focus on the wall with a flash light turn off flash and take the shot. I took me a few times to get the flash setting right because I was shooting in pitch black conditions, I was pretty spooky in there but I can’t wait to go back.
(For a tutorial on lighting in photography check out the piece in our ‘The Art of Photography‘ series).
Bicycle Wheel Repair // Photographer: Ross Pollack
Money Can
Ross Pollack
Bicycle Wheel Repair: Street scene in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong off Lockhart Road under the overpass. Man repairing bicycle wheels in front of a sign urging street cleanliness.
Money Can’t Buy You Happiness: Faded street graffiti in Kowloon Bay. Rich people collect money, wise people collect happiness. How ironic for a Hong Kong so focused on the former.
I Wish This Was a Swimming Pool // Photographer: Tim Lambourne
Tim Lambourne
I Wish This Was a Swimming Pool: This is Soho Square, a big hole in the ground in Ponsonby, Auckland. So big is this hole, it even has its own Wikipedia page. According to Wikipedia Soho Square is a 250 million dollar development that never was. It’s a shame, Ponsonby is an interesting and fun suburb, but this is an eye-sore, and as the artist above points out, you can’t even swim. Gutted.
Full Instructions
If you’d like to have one of your urban photos featured in an upcoming #UrbanPixels post, check out the below instructions. We love being social, but a few rules helps us make sure we can feature your photos in an efficient manner!
1. Follow @theurbantimes on Twitter (so that we can direct message you if we wish to use your photo).
2. Tweet the photo(s) to us @theurbantimes, and make sure to include “#UrbanPixel” in the tweet. (The best way to get your photo seen on twitter is to make sure ‘@theurbantimes‘ is not at the start of your tweet but somewhere in the body – this will allow your tweet to become searchable and not private).
3. If we think your photo adequately meets the current #UrbanPixel theme, @theurbantimes will respond to you with an email address. When we do, please send us your photo(s) with a brief description and/or backstory. Note: The submitted photos must be at least 990 pixels wide to qualify.
While we can’t include all of the photo we receive in #UrbanPixel posts, we appreciate every tweet we get! Good luck, and happy urban-shooting.
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