For my first shoot as part of the city brief I returned to my home city of Liverpool and in particular the area where I spent from the age of 11 through to 18; A council estate called the Norris Green estate (Liverpool 11) or "Boot estate," as it is more commonly known. This area has changed a lot in the last 9 years, the house where I spent those years growing up is no longer there, as is the case with most of the surrounding streets - they where demolished due to poor structural integrity. Now, this was never the nicest of areas to grow up in and I was happy when we left, but that did not stop me feeling a little saddened at the sight of waste land where I once lived, I had happy memories of growing up there. The area itself has been left to ruin as the images below show, intentions of re-building on the land are yet to come to fruition. Less than a quarter of a mile away lies the area of West Derby (Liverpool 12), an area that can be considered fairly affluent. This area is worlds apart from the remains of the Norris Green estate, a
gate adorns the driveways to two of the small housing complexes, the
pavements are well maintained and there are no council houses in sight.
Obviously, the differences between Norris Green and West Derby have
always been clear, but now with most of the Norris Green estate gone and
wasteland in it's place, the class divide is even clearer. My intention with this shoot was to document the differences between these 2 areas that are a stones throw away and with it this social divide that exists between 2 areas that are under the remit of the same council.
In order to show this I photographed;
Houses.
Pavements/Roads.
Green spaces.
Road signs.
Below are the images I used to get feedback from my group, they have been cross-processed in lightroom.
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| The Norris Green Estate (Liverpool 11) |
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| The Norris Green Estate (Liverpool 11) |
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| The Norris Green Estate (Liverpool 11) |
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| The Norris Green Estate (Liverpool 11) |
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| The Norris Green Estate (Liverpool 11) |
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| The Norris Green Estate (Liverpool 11) |
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| The Norris Green Estate (Liverpool 11) |
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| The Norris Green Estate (Liverpool 11) |
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| The Norris Green Estate (Liverpool 11) |
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| The Norris Green Estate (Liverpool 11) |
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| The Norris Green Estate (Liverpool 11) |
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| The Norris Green Estate (Liverpool 11) |
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| West Derby (Liverpool 12) |
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| West Derby (Liverpool 12) |
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| West Derby (Liverpool 12) |
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| West Derby (Liverpool 12) |
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| West Derby (Liverpool 12) |
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| West Derby (Liverpool 12) |
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| The Norris Green Estate (Liverpool 11) |
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| West Derby (Liverpool 12) |
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| The Norris Green Estate (Liverpool 11) |
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| West Derby (Liverpool 12) |
Feedback
The feedback I recieved for this series of images was that it was a good idea, but areas where it needed development where pointed out;
Less Green and yellow in the processing (alteration to the cross processing)
Stepping back more with the camera with the road signs so you could see more of the surrounding area.
Views from other angles.
Advised to look at other photographers, such as Paul Graham and Richard Billingham.
Despite all this feedback and help from my group, I feel stuck with this assignment, i'm not sure where I can go with this series of images. Looking at Richard Billinghams Black Country series and Paul Grahams work amongst my research with other street photographer, hasn't really given me any inspiration.... My solution is to go and re-shoot as planned and see what happens from there.
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