Sometimes I walk to work. It is a four mile (one and a quarter hour) meditation. Virtually straight down a busy arterial road into the city centre, it is not the prettiest route. I often keep pace with the cars that nudge along in the slow peak-time jam. The rhythm of walking allows the knots of tension to loosen and the to-do lists that jostle for priority to shake down and temporarily settle. It allows my mind to healthily wander.
It's a journey I've made many times. Yesterday I found myself noticing just how heavily patched the British urban pavement is. Prompted by a mossy crazy-paved driveway to one side, that reminded me both of paths my dad constructed in our back garden in the seventies and also my ceramic patchwork, I began to really look at the evidence of countless repairs passing under my feet.
The act of photographing enables you to see the mundane and overlooked in a far clearer way. Documenting the abstract tarmac, slab and cobble compositions became my morning's creative mini brief - a lovely way to start a busy day.
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