Nick Miners Photography » architecture

In Bruges

Nick Miners — Sun, 09 May 2010 08:39:21 +0000

As I write, I’m about to check out of the Hotel Notre Dame in Mariastraat in the historic Belgian city of Bruges. The city (Brugge in Flemish) used to be an important hub of trans-European trade until its port silted up in the middle of the 16th Century, but it has retained many of its medieval buildings and all of its charm. Probably unfairly, Belgium isn’t top of the list for many visitors to mainland Europe, but Bruges is certainly one of the most beautiful and friendly cities I’ve visited. Here is a selection of some of my photos of the many faces of this wonderful little place.

My friend and fellow photographer Mark Casey will have his photos online soon. I will link to them here when they’re online.

UPDATE: They’re up. Please go here.

Un jour à Paris

Nick Miners — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:13:21 +0000

Earlier in the month, pretty much on a whim, I booked a return train to Paris for my family and me so we spent most of yesterday in this famous European capital. We started (as we almost always do) in Montmartre, which while very touristy, has some very colourful shops to photograph and an unbeatable view of the city from in front of the Basilique du Sacré Coeur. Despite this, I enjoy visiting the area less and less each time, as there are an increasing number of hawkers, blaggers and outright con artists, all trying to take advantage of the gullible tourist, and it’s a real effort just to avoid making eye contact or engaging in a conversation with one of them.

After getting our fill of the panorama, we headed south to the Centre Georges Pompidou, a gallery and modern art museum. Designed by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano in a style reminiscent of London’s Lloyd’s Building, the building has most of the infrastructure and structural support on the outside, leaving the interior free of clutter and with ample room for the interesting stuff. A set of escalators take you up inside a glass pipe which runs outside the front of the building, all the way to the viewing gallery at the top, where the Eiffel Tower can be seen to the west, and while one of the two galleries is currently closed, there is a very good exhibition of the work of Pierre Soulages.

Before leaving we visited another famous Parisian cathedral, Notre Dame de Paris, which stands on a island in the middle of the river Seine, and I created some abstracts using the various coloured lights of shops, cars and traffic signals. Then with sore feet and tired eyes, we headed back to Gare du Nord to catch our train back to St Pancras International and head home.

Manchester

Nick Miners — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 08:29:19 +0000

A few black and white abstracts from the city of Manchester.

Thames Barrier

Nick Miners — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:11:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I got my camera out, so I decided to take it in to work with me today. I was initially planning to visit Borough Market again, but I decided instead to head down to the Thames Barrier in East London after work. I got there just before sunset, so all these pictures were taken at ISO 1600 or 3200, as I was travelling light and didn’t have my tripod with me.

Northern Ireland by Camera

Nick Miners — Tue, 05 May 2009 07:12:00 +0000

I have just returned from a tour of Northern Ireland as part of the occasional, ongoing By Camera series of galleries, where I tour a location with some friends with the sole purpose of taking photographs. Until the others have picked their photos for the minisite, I have put up a selection of mine.

Into the MMIX

Nick Miners — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:35:04 +0000

Happy New Year to all (both?) of my readers (is there anyone there reading this? If so, please say ‘Hi’ in the comments)! Here are some end of the year pics from London; we were let out of work early so I brought my camera in for some late afternoon abstracts…

I hope 2009 brings everything you want and more.

Three legs bad?

Nick Miners — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 12:46:00 +0000

I went to Cambridge yesterday, primarily to hand over my old 5D to its new owner, but also to take some photos with the new Mark II while allowing my friend to try out his new toy at the same time. The vibrant colours of the market were a good source of photos, but we were both rather disappointed by the attitude of the university staff. Whilst I was framing a photo (hand-held, I should add) outside Kings College Chapel, I was told we weren’t allowed to use tripods on the university grounds. I pointed out I wasn’t using the tripod, but as it was standing next to me, that counted as ‘using’ it apparently. When I asked why not, all we got was ‘it’s the rules’.

Something similar has happened to me before, next to the London Eye, where I concede that using a tripod could be construed as an obstruction given how busy it is there, but as we were pretty much the only people outside the chapel I can’t for the life of me understand why such a restriction would be in place. Of course we both left the grounds immediately, pondering the increasingly suspicious attitude of people towards photographers in general.

Anyway if you want to see the pictures I did manage to take, with or without a tripod, look no further.