The Birmingham Canals

Canal Project Is Finally Complete…

   After three months, I have finally completed my photographic project documenting the major canals within the Birmingham area. The initial idea was first conceived way back in the soggy autumn of last year, as mentioned in a previous post from October 2012: Canals. My aim was to cycle along the towpaths of the major waterways that form the Birmingham Canal Navigations, and to explore the connecting canal lines which serve this waterway system, the largest canal network in the world. And now I have finished.

   In total, I travelled, primarily by bicycle, over 250 miles, in all weathers, taking, on average, ten photographs for every ten miles of canal (although there are some exceptions). I battled ice, wind, rain, sleet, snow, sunburn, mud, floods, landslides, a menagerie of animal life, and not forgetting drunks, angry fishermen and a whole host of bizarre individuals who populate canal towpaths in winter.

   The complete project is comprised of over 1000 photographs, and to post them all online is unrealistic and unfeasible, so below is a selection from the series, which, when viewed as a set, provides a unique view into the world of Birmingham's waterways during the cold, winter months. The images capture the canals as they are when out-of-season, when foliage is minimal and the original industrial intent is more visible. The lack of people and boats often creates an erie and desolate world, dominated by dereliction and forgotten elements of history, slowly being reclaimed by nature.  It is also a time of major change for the canals, as British Waterways, the government department that has run the nation's waterways since nationalisation in 1948, has been dissolved and handed control over to the newly and specifically formed charity, The Canal and River Trust, whose job it is to maintain and preserve the country's waterways.

   Hopefully, this project will serve as a permanent record of our heritage at a pivotal moment in time…otherwise those nine punctures I had to endure during the making of it will have all been for nothing. 

   You can view the images in larger sizes by clicking on them. All photographs were taken using a Full Frame (35mm equivalent) D-SLR, with the lens set to an aperture of f/2.8. This was to try and replicate the style of photography used through the industrial revolution, when lens apertures were generally wide and fixed. Other settings varied according to each image's requirements. 

A note on watermarks: Thanks to the Government's proposed legislation, the "Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill", any images without a clear owner (aka an 'orphan' image) can potentially be used commercially without any copyright protection or compensation; in other words, if it isn't named as yours, it isn't yours any more. To avoid this, I have used prominent watermarking, as metadata is often removed during the uploading process.