The "Slums" of Salisbury...

There are, of course, no slums in Salisbury. But I recall extremely vividly when a friend of Des, who you all met two days ago, came to Salisbury with him to visit and we all sat in a nicely posh very old pub, just outside the Cathedral Close, with a roaring fire and leather armchairs. In a thick Belfast accent, which I had to ask her to repeat, she asked where the slums of Salisbury were.

Thinking diplomatically but also responsibly I answered that we had one main area, built during the post war period, with a boom in the ‘60’s, on the outskirts, known as Bemerton Heath. And whilst its residents did seem to fill the law court pages in the local paper, it was not exclusively so. And whilst suffering from social problems compared to the most affluent areas, the “Heath” had it no doubt much better than many troubled estates that we are always hearing about.

Now, I had been thinking of showing the other side of this heritaged, touristy and gorgeous landscaped city through Blips in a long while. The Heath is quite a long walk to merely pop up and visit and so a bus or two up there will be on the cards. Rather than traipse around with a cumbersome tripod, my images would be taken at night, and handheld. I would use just a couple of very fast fixed lenses, for both simplicity and light gathering capability. And using my older FX D700, as it performs a bit better at very high iso’s. No gloss, no sheen, a gritty view on the underbelly of the city, if you like.

So, my first attempt was a walk around another troubled area, but one much smaller and within walking distance – known as The Friary. Neither it, nor the Heath have anything high-rise, or ugly brutalist concrete jungles. Both areas have probably had it worse in the past than now, though I don’t live in either, so I cannot really answer that and I’m sure some might disagree.

I was surprised how many lights were on at this early hour, which slightly unnerved me. Anyone looking out and seeing a big bloke with a camera pointing up at them would not be too impressed, I reckoned. And I’m not not for a verbal (or any sort of) challenge! There are a large number of families on these estates and an irate father was not something I was looking forward to encountering.

In the space of about half an hour, I took about a dozen pics – no burned out cars or abandoned sofas – and whilst the back alleys and communal gardens wouldn’t exactly win awards, it was all a bit ordinary and not endearingly run down enough for me, as a photographer. A friendly black and white cat kept me company, for a bit.

I took this with my very old (1960’s) pre Nikkor Nikon, a Nippon Kogaku 35mm f1.4. At max aperture the contrast is soft and it suffers from a surprising amount of barrel distortion, so I proceed to correct both of these in Photoshop. I then wanted to make it a neat architectural shot, so perspectively corrected it, so it didn’t appear to be falling over backwards. I do like this, mainly as now it has become a bit of a pattern shot, with that one blue rectangle at the top left.

I don’t know if there’s any kind of series here, but it does show that there is potential. It is also a good experience and shooting at iso 5000 is so different for me than iso 100 and a tripod. And trying to get the best quality from those, again quite different, trying to keep noise to a minimum.

I will get up to the Heath, soon. I do see these as a potential for an occasional Blip, within reason, the weather won’t matter too much, and with so many dark hours right now, it’s a little bit exciting to have a new project.