Regency Wharf

My first walk around Birmingham this year was an eventful photographic journey. The pictures were taken with my Fujifilm x100v.  It was a cold and sunny day. My walk was a circular route of my favourite photo spots including Snow Hill Car Park and the Jewellery Quarter. Of course I could not forget about the Birmingham canal navigation and I therefore included Brindley place and Gas Street Basin. 

Underneath the arches of Snow Hill Station
Underneath the arches of Snow Hill Station
Train leaving Snow Hill Station
Train leaving Snow Hill Station – lovely light from the sunrise
St Paul's Church
St Paul’s Church with the spire caught in the sun
Brindley Place
Brindley Place catching the light.
Entering Gas Street Basin
Entering Gas Street Basin from under the Black Sabbath Bridge.

The pictures taken in Gas Street Basin went down well and the picture of the reflections at Regency Wharf was long listed in ShareMondays2022 and shortlisted on the Fotospeed weekly competitions. 

Regency Wharf
Regency Wharf reflections.

There were other opportunities for pictures of reflections and I wanted to take those that are popular on the social media pages. People standing in the doorway of the Tap and Spile is popular. The white wall of Pierre Bistro is another one.

Gas Street Basin reflections
White shoes.
Gas Street Basin reflections
Walking the line.

After a refuelling with coffee at the Exchange, I went into the Birmingham Library.  The sunlight was strong for January and with it being a clear day you could see a long way.  I could see the Barr Beacon and the Clent Hills.  It was time to get back to the car and go home and the final part? A walk back through Centennial square and Chamberlain square finished off the walk nicely.

Terrace at Birmingham Library
A different view from the Terrace at Birmingham Library.
Inside Birmingham Library
Selective Colour on the Escalator in Birmingham Library.
Classic view of the BT Tower Birmingham
Classic view of the BT Tower Birmingham from the Library Secret Garden
Old and new view from Chamberlain Square
Old and new view from Chamberlain Square

My Fujifilm camera was on Aperture priority, ISO on automatic and I just moved between f/4 and f/11 depending on the light and what field of view I wanted.  Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Links
If you want to see more pictures of Birmingham then follow @igersbirminghamUK where I am one of the team that select photographs for our Instagram account.

More from my Blog

If you like my pictures then here is a taster of some of my popular posts about Birmingham

The Exchange meets IgersBirminghamUK
Moseley Instameet – IgersBirminghamUK
Digbeth, Digbeth – so good they had to name it twice


I planned to go into Birmingham on Sunday as it is quiet and often there is the chance of getting some interesting pictures. As I planned for the trip into the city, I thought what if I matched up some new pictures with old ones from my Flickr collection. Going into Birmingham is not pleasant as there are many homeless people around who are desperate following on from the Coronavirus. I did not take any pictures as they were aggressively asking for money. Therefore I was very careful getting my camera out to take the pictures. I took most of the pictures around changes caused by the tram network. I did take a few pictures of the new library but for some unknown reason, they were corrupted and I will have to do return and take a new set of photographs on another day. Once again as a photographer during lockdown it is wise to remember the strict security around buildings. When I went up the ramp to take the picture downwards, I was immediately spotted by security guards and asked what I was doing. I did feel bad as I am putting the guards under unnecessary pressure by checking on me. However the empty picture of the ramp was perfect. The pictures of the trams are shown in the gallery below.

In front of the Town Hall
On Pinfold Street
Taken on the ramp
Weaman Street

The past Birmingham views were chosen where I had some old photographs taken roughly in the same spot. These are lined up below. I realised that it was not until 2011 onwards that I really started to take pictures on the streets of Birmingham. In retrospect I should have done more but hindsight is a wonderful thing 🙂

Taken on January 11, 2012
Taken on July 1, 2019
Taken on February 9, 2012
Taken on November 7, 2013

I made the images the same size and then used layers in Photoshop to align the pictures and with a mixture of altering the opacity, rotation and altering the colours, I came up with 4 composite images.

I have had some nice feedback from them on social media and I will go back to do some more in a few weeks time. I wished I had done more old pictures but my photographic interests have certainly changed over the years.