I love taking photos of buildings in reflections and through old wonky glass. I love the way the glass distorts the building and how you view it. It brings another dimension to the scene. This image also plays with the scale of people – obviously in real life, they are all at different distances from me and therefore the glass, but the reflection flattens the arrangement making it look like they’re walking almost side-by-side which then makes some of them look tiny and one a giant!

The glass is the front of the Library of Birmingham and it’s reflecting the Hall of Memory which was built in the 1920s as a memorial to the men and women from Birmingham who died in the First World War. Its role has subsequently been extended to commemorate those who died in WWII and in active service since. Its simplicity, style and scale set it out against all the other bigger, brasher, newer buildings around it. The Hall is calmer, more solid, less fleeting, more grounding, more human scale than anything else around it.

It nicely mixes the classic with the (then) contemporary. There are four statues surrounding the Hall and at first glance they appear to be classic romans, look closer and you’ll see that the men are accompanied by modern war machinery and weapons. The lady depicts (I think) a nurse holding an olive wreath.

To me, modelling each person in the style of a grand roman links us to the past – those that went before, those who got us to where we are and instilled the values that we defend. The modern weaponry and machinery highlight that this defence is still ongoing, will always evolve and people will always defend their values and culture for themselves and those who have been and gone and those who have yet to arrive. The wreath hopes for a future of peace.

On a lighter note – the building looks great reflecting in the modern library façade on a beautiful June day! A happy day spent ambling around the lesser frequented streets of Birmingham looking at architecture. If you’re ever in the city there is a huge amount of heritage buildings in the centre and beyond – if you come out of the back end of New Street station, you just have to look up and you’re surrounded.