I did feel very self conscious with my camera and was looked on with suspicion by a couple of people, but I reckoned if I did it with a huge friendly smile on my face I should be ok. This worked on the whole until I failed to ask one shopkeeper for permission who followed me down the road asking me why I was photographing his shop sign. I explained, but he was not happy with me saying curtly 'it would have been nice to have been asked'. I'm not surprised some people are suspicious, so many people must have been round over the past few years, taking photos, introducing new projects and asking questions and I will be conscious of that in future.
What I realised whilst walking round was the amazing diversity of buildings in the area and the history in the fabric of those buildings. I have always been going somewhere previously - on my way to a school or the community centre - and have never just been in, looked at and experienced SW Burnley. I wandered round streets and alleys, looked carefully at junction boxes and stonemasonry, read graffiti and sampled the goods from several bakeries.I have worked out how different places connect to each other and am hoping I won't feel nearly so daft in future when I am talking to people about SW Burnley and not knowing where anything is!
I used the photos as a temporary sign for the South West Streets Museum facebook group.
All in all it was a very good day!
Cath
