Stonehouse - Union Street Photos

As a group we decided that our focus area will be around Union Street, the main road that cuts through the middle of the Stonehouse region.  We therefore went to Union Street and took photos of the area to better document what the location is like. Below is a straight forward collage of the photos I took in the order that they were taken from top left (first photo) to bottom right (last photo). To see a larger version of this image just click on it:

The aim of the photos was to document not only the area in general but also the areas which could be used as the improvement location as well as elements that characterised the area, such as graffiti and the Dance Academy building.  By putting these images in a temporal format like this it shows how the area changes as you travel through over a period time.  It also shows images that link together easily, such as those of the Dance Academy in the middle of the image.  This is to be expected being that one was taken not long after the other, but it did give me an idea to take the photos and collage them together to make an image of the entire road from start to finish, alike to a really long panorama of the area. In this way the focus of the collage would be the focus of the project, and the result may bring a better understanding of the area to the viewer than the one shown above.  The following is this collage:

To see a larger image click on the picture.   This image allows for the enitre length of Union Street to be in one image.  This also shows the difference between the two sides of the road as the near side has many different aspects to it while the far side of the road has very little.  Also the near side of the road is quite variable in the amount of regeneration.  Some sections had relatively new housing and flats while there is also a lot of buildings which are run down and dilapidated.  This demonstrates theres is quite a lot of regenerative conflict still in this area.  It is also interesting that most of the housing, not only on Union Street, but throughout Stonehouse, is on the near side of this image in the North section of Stonehouse.  Union street in some ways seems to cut the area in two, between residential and more commercial areas.