Some time ago a metaphorical door slammed in my face.
For a while I was suddenly acutely aware of just how many blocked up doorways and windows there around us. My hypersensitivity found them in urban environments and rural ones, in buildings built 700 years ago and ones built in the 21st century. I became briefly obsessed. Some of the doorways and windows I photographed are bleak symptoms of industrial abandonment and change, while others are picturesquely ruinous. Then, almost as suddenly as it started, my need to photograph them faded away. It takes no great self-awareness to understand what was going on.
This first set are buildings which are mainly 19th or 18th Century, mainly urban and mainly Northern.
This next set show some Troglodyte dwellings in Bridgenorth, Staffordshire. Compare them with the dwellings at Kinver Edge.
More urban, Northern industrial buildings, but 20th century ones this time:
These are medieval, being the Convent by the Thames at Godstow, just north of Oxford.
And finally a 21st century urban building, where the windows are blocked because the property is not yet ready for occupation, instead of being blocked because it is no longer being used.
Marvelous photos, though now I’m feeling a bit claustrophobic.
Thank you Patry. I know what you mean about claustrophobic.
I was surprised by how often walls that we ignore because they are blank do in fact carry the scars of old windows or doorways.
I’ve gone back to not seeing them again, which is almost as strange.
Aphra.
Wow – these are great! I’ve noticed (browsing thru photos playing with my new muvee program) that I take a lot of windows and doors too. Once, way back, I saw a poster of Georgetown (Wash, DC) doors and was very impressed by it – maybe that’s why. But the windows – well, I love windows. And houses – I have pet houses I watch just because they have such energy.
The ones that look like caves are my favorite.
I saw a blocked doorway to nowhere today — no actual building on either side, just the doorway. It’s been right by my office for all these years, but I just noticed it this afternoon. Up in the air above the street, no less.
I shall try and remember to go and take a picture soon.
What an interesting subject. I must look around Perth and see what I can find. I know of a beauty which does not lead into the State Museum.