signs Archives - Page 20 of 21 - Ed O'Keeffe Photography

23 January 200828 May 2017

Pizza Express Sign, Peter Street, Manchester

There are four Pizza Express Restaurants in the city centre of Manchester and this photograph shows the nearest one to my flat. I have never actually eaten at the Peter Street Pizza Express but I am currently producing a serious of photographs around the Deansgate / Cross Street area of Manchester. Yesterday I was looking at food and the signage that goes with the various businesses. As I study the buildings and architecture around certain areas of the city I am seeing some fantastic details. Unfortunately these details I want to photograph will be very difficult to capture on camera.

After studying graphic design for nearly four years I constantly look at logos of all different types. The Pizza Express logo is very Art Nouveau and that is probably what made me look up and take this picture. That and the details of the brick work or tiles on the wall behind it.

28 December 200728 May 2017

Fred Aldous Art Shop Doorway, Manchester

The above photograph shows the artwork in the doorway of Fred Aldous, Manchester’s largest supplier of Art, Craft and Design materials based in the heart of the Northern Quarter. As a design student you can imagine I enjoy visiting and browsing art shops. On a recent visit to Fred Aldous art shop I noticed this quite large stone art work.

Unfortunately it was rather late in the day and so there was little light in the dark doorway. Still, by using a monopod as my camera support I was able to get this image reasonably sharp (for web viewing at least). It seemed only logical to remove all colour from the image as the only colours were a blue tint on the left (from the outside) and a yellow tint on the right of the image (from inside the doorway).

I think the thing that drew me to take this picture is that the more you look at it, the more details you start to see the hands, different types of art equipment, brushes etc. It isn’t my best or favourite image, but something that I saw in my day to day life that I couldn’t walk past without at least trying to record photographically.

22 December 200728 May 2017

Seasons Greetings Manchester

One of the simpliest but best Christmas decorations (in my opinion) around the city centre can be found on the corner of Albert Square, in front of the Town Hall looking down Cross Street towards Exchange Square, where the Manchester Wheel is currently located. I felt it has been too long since I processed any of my photographs into black and white and this view seemed to call for it. It was taken at night a few weeks ago now and the camera was on a tripod.

It was a complete guess photo to be honest, due to being on the corner of a cross roads. The tripod was on the pavement, but with the huge numbers of people (mainly going to and from the German / Christmas Market) it was impossible to look through the viewfinder to compose the image. So I simply set up my camera with a 2 second shutter delay (to avoid camera shake) and waited for the traffic lights to go red, hoping that my camera would take the long exposure before a big bus drove past and into my image. It turned out better than I had expected, so I thought I would share it with you.

This afternoon, I headed back home to Hale near Altrincham (south of Manchester) to my parents house to spend Christmas with family. I hope to try to get out with the camera at least once before I have to head back into the city to continue my battle with University coursework.

13 December 200728 May 2017

Serena sur Playa, Almeria, Spain

This photograph is taken of a large (probably 8 foot high) sign in the holiday resort of Serena, part of the Roquetas de Mar area of Almeria on the south east coast of Spain. The area around where this image was captured is currently under going heavy development with dozens of new apartment buildings under construction. I was on an evening walk from the Golf Centre Apartments, where I was staying for my week in Almeria and it seemed a very strange place to have this kind of thing, due to it being a five or ten minutes walk from the main shopping and eating area of the resort. Still, I thought it was worth taking a photograph, even if the sun was behind it making it extremely difficult to get a good picture.