A-Z Every Street
Over the course of twenty-twenty-one landscape photographer Thomas James set out of walk every street of his home-town.
The project reveals a quieter city hidden behind its noisy tourist facade.
Over the course of twenty-twenty-one landscape photographer Thomas James set out of walk every street of his home-town.
The project reveals a quieter city hidden behind its noisy tourist facade.
I grew up in Bath.
I moved away.
Then returned later in life with my family to set down roots.
The city hosts five million visitors each year. An economy powered by heritage and cultural tourism makes it one the most photographed places in the world.
The transient nature of tourism means the flood of images on Instagram, travel-vlogs and magazines are the same picture postcard scenes repeated again and again; a Georgian Crescents, the Roman Baths, a medieval Abbey.
A real city – the cities people experience everyday – do not look like picture postcards.
Culverhay Castle
Rush Hill
Odd Down
As twenty-twenty-one rolled in the realities of another year of the pandemic became depressingly clear.
I needed a project that would survive a set of ever shifting lock-down rules and provide some form of active meditation and calm.
The project was simple. I joined the growing community of people determined to walk every street of their hometowns.
In March twenty-twenty-one I bought a Collins A-to-Z street atlas and red sharpie and started to mark my progress.
Odd Down
South Stoke
Over the next few months the A-to-Z dominated my spare-time.
Walking the city is as much a treasure hunt as it is a pilgrimage.
I would plan walks to cross out specific areas only to find tangles of paths leading off to areas I never knew existed.
Alongside the rigid markings of A-to-Z I found desire paths, ugly and unique buildings tucked away down side streets and unintentional patterns, rhythm and repetition in my images.
The everyday city ended up as a quirky living thing distant from the glossy-tourist facade for which it is known.
Odd Down
St Martins
Odd Down
Roundhill
Odd Down
Upper Western
Odd Down
South Stoke
South Stoke
Locksbrook
Rush Hill
Lyncombe Hill Fields
St Martins
Combe Down
Combe Down Village
Mulberry Park
Rush Hill
Horsecombe
Combe Down
Lower Western
Entry Hill
Rush Hill
Rush Hill
Fox Hill
Fox Hill
Popes Walk
Larkhall
Upper Western
Lower Bristol Road
Moorland Road
City Centre
Perrymead
Fox Hill
Landsdown Crescent
Fox Hill
Fox Hill
Bearflat
Bearflat
Lyncombe Vale
Roundhill
Upper Western
Pennyquick
Widcombe
Twerton
Upper Western
Lower Western
Lower Western
Charlcombe
Ragland
Summerhill
Lansdown
Charlcombe
Twerton
Twerton
Claverton Down
Bathwick
Twerton
Moorfields
City Centre
Larkhall
Riverside
City Centre
City Centre
Odd Down
Larkhall
Bathwick Hill
Widcombe
Combe Down
Sion
Riverside
Fox Hill