In the photograph as art stakes, there are sort of two extremes: the high-concept shoot, with props make-up and lighting and the high-concept concept where the photos might not really be the whole story. The Birmingham Photographic Grid falls into the later camp:
A photographic grid aims to make a meaningful visual statement about an environment by adopting a systematic approach. What does this place really look like? What does this place feel like? These are the questions being answered by a grid photograph. The grid imposes a system that may sometimes locate the picturesque but is just as likely to find the industrial, the rugged, the new, old, boring, threatening or just ugly.
The “industrial, the rugged, the new, old, boring, threatening or just ugly” sounds like a fair description of Birmingham, and these photos are all of these things – mapped out on a grid based with the eleven route.
See if you can guess where this is (and then find it on the grid):
