London is so rich with photographic opportunities that some times it can get overwhelming. You can either end up taking an endless series of postcard style photos or you can try and look to find new views and new ways to frame over exposed icons and places.
I always enjoy visiting Thessaloniki, it’s a city I have lived some of the most formative and best years if my life in. Most greek cities are very grey and ugly in a modernist way, but Thessaloniki has more splashes of colour and character than most.
Paris is a most photogenic city, and an overly photographed city. One interesting thing about the French and how they lay out their cities, palaces and parks is their obsession with grids and geometry. If you look at Paris from the sky you will see that many of the main buildings and monuments of the city are laid out in one giant monumental axis.
I love the juxtapositions you can come across in cities, and I also love the random and chance.
I find the backstreets and alleyways of a city just as interesting as the main roads and public squares. I always enjoy exploring the back spaces and what hides behind the shiny shop fronts. In a way you are seeing what is meant to be hidden. I am also one of those people who finds beauty in ugliness.
I really love public art. Even though it can be very hit and miss – in Greece in particular we have an abundance of obscenely ugly modern public art – I prefer an ugly sculpture over no sculpture at all any time.
What I love about the city, is that as you wonder round it and explore it, you never know what you will come across. London in particular is a very fertile city that way. Central London is in a way considered the “front window” or “display” of the UK, and a lot of care has been put into its public space and buildings.
The City of Freiburg is often called Germany’s “ecological capital” and has been recognized internationally as one of the world’s most livable, sustainable and child-friendly cities. In 1993, IMCL awarded the City of Freiburg the IMCL (International Making Cities Livable) City of Vision Award. Since then, Freiburg has received numerous awards for its leadership in sustainable transportation planning, promotion of walking and biking, traffic calming mechanisms, human scale mixed-use development, renewable energy, protection of nature, and sustainability.
I have never been there but I heard about this project in a talk about city design and regeneration and thought it was one of the most fun things I had come across in a while. And it managed the rare feat of actually making me consider visiting Switzerland to see it.
I have changed up my posting schedule a little bit by adding a new category. I live with the hope that I will eventually become a proper blogger and uphold my schedule.
So first urban brief.
Let’s talk about trees. I love the city. I’m a city girl born and bred. That doesn’t stop me loving nature too. I find the countryside gorgeous, but I don’t know if I’d be able to live there. So some of my favourite places are parks and city beaches and hills, generally all sorts of places that bring nature into the city.
pandora pavlides 