Fleetingly street, permanently captured

Fleeting symbols of what we are...

Just recently I’ve gotten quite into taking photos of random things I see on the streets. When I say random things I mean stickers, graffiti (not tags though…they do nothing for me)…anything a bit ‘different’. I’ve even created a set on Flickr to collect all these images together. Whilst I love taking pictures of interesting buildings, there’s something fascinating about the fleeting nature of these street adornments. A building, by and large, will last for at least a couple of generations. These small contributions to our urban environment barely last a month (depending on how stringent your council is of course!). And yet, in some ways, they tell us more about the time in which we live than any building.

As a ‘wannabe librarian’, I think such street ephemera ought to be recorded and preserved. Even if some people view them as a blight on our public spaces. The fact is, they are a reflection of our society and deserve a place alongside the more ‘acceptable’ representations of the world in which we live.