Lens-Artists Challenge # 337: Bold

Lens-Artists Challenge # 337: Bold

It was the turn of Sofia from Photographias to host the Challenge this week, and her theme for the week is, 'Bold' (https://wp.me/p7mIo3-4Lx). Be bold', says Sofia, 'and take us all somewhere new'. Personally,  I don't consider myself all that bold, but I do admire those Street arts and taggers who are bold enough to trespass in spaces that people shouldn't really be entering to leave their mark in bright, colourful designs.

I took a trip into Aveiro, armed with my trusty Panasonic GF1 and 20mm f1.7 lens, with the specific aim of recording some street art. Actually, it was the first test 'in anger' of a 20mm lens that was supposed to be faulty but for me has behaved flawlessly. I had hoped to go to the Yacht Club, but the road was being resurfaced and the whole area was inaccessible (and I wasn't bold enough to challenge the heavy lorries and industrial equipment that was speeding back and forth across the terrain).

So instead I wandered around the roads and alleyways of Aveiro hunting for street art. It's always a great place to go. Sometimes the tags and designs are new and still retain their bright and bold colours, and sometimes the art has decayed over the years and has lost its vibrance. In one instance, under the underpass of the road leading to the Port of Aveiro and the seaside towns of Barra and Costa Nova, a brightly coloured tag, now faded with age, was in turn covered with posters that were also once bright and colourful but are now decaying and barely legible. (The posters were actually for the TV series, 'Andor'.)

Sometimes the Aveiro city council sponsors street art, and one example was this commission by artist Fábio Carneiro to revitalise the area around the Praça do Peixe. Part of a tribute to fishermen, you might recognise this kitten from a previous Challenge entry. That photograph was from a few years ago, since then it has decayed further, but still retains its vibrance and bright colours.

I'm going to finish with a recent photograph of a really old piece depicting a vampire figure with the message 'we scream but we have no voice: No! No!' This piece has been on this wall for more than a decade now, but I've never been able to find out what it was for. Portugal has a rich tradition of political street art and it must refer to something. Over the years, a lot of the work has worn away, to the point that only the bold red 'grito' (scream) is left intact. Incidentally, this was taken with a 1960s Welta Penti II half-frame Rapid film camera with Harman Phoenix film, which is why it looks so different to the rest of the digital images.

Themes for the Lens-Artists Challenge are posted each Saturday at 12:00 noon EST (which is 4pm, GMT) and anyone who wants to take part can post their images during the week. If you want to know more about the Challenge, details can be found here (https://photobyjohnbo.com/about-lens-artists/), and entries can be found on the WordPress reader using the tag 'Lens-Artists'.

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#Bold, #LensArtists, Lens-Artists, #Challenge, #Graffiti, StreetArt, #Urban,