Perhaps it’s because we rarely, if ever, see them in my home city (Melbourne, Australia), or perhaps I was just in the mood that day to pay a little closer attention to these life-saving devices, I gave them some long overdue attention during our 36 Photowalk led by Paul as a pre-Connect Live activity on the 15 October in San Francisco.
I was one of the nearly 50 strong contingent tagging along. 151 Local Guides from 59 countries were descending on San Francisco for the 16-18 October 2018 Connect Live.
So, perhaps, next time when you are next in San Fran, you might want to give these ubiquitous and not quite nondescript objects more than a passing glance - whether you will be tramming it, walking, or having a lark by yourself or with friends.
They are quite fascinating @MariaNgo - when I’ve got some time I’ll add some external fire escape shots from NYC in reply to your article. This sort of fire escape is unusual to the Australian eye as we’re used to internal fire escapes that are sealed from conflagration and protect anyone inside. In SF and NYC I noticed they really add character to the building, they are used as balconies a lot and many people hang washing and other items out on them.
I see @PaulPavlinovich really arranged a fascinating walk for you in San Francisco. Honestly, I also find a certain beauty in many urban features such as fire escapes. Light and shadows do bring awesome textures to the buildings they are attached to.
Personally I when travelling to a new city or town always try to find time to walk around some the smallest streets near the center. You can find most surprising and cutest venues there. Small galleries, old buildings, cute coffee places or bakeries, hidden clubs even give a town a big portion of its charm. One thing that can tell a whole story of building in my opinion is its door. If you look at its details you can always get the feelings with which it was chosen, put there and arranged. It just adds a character of its own to the whole scene.
I absolutely LOVE:heart: that point of view! I’ve always been fascinated by the fire escape in SF’s Chinatown. The laundry hung from some of them. The artistic iron work of others. I love the beauty that you have illustrated in them.
Hi @KimberlyAnnG I’m glad that you liked what I’ve been able to highlight about these fire escapes in San Francisco. I really did enjoy photographing them and looking at them a little more closely. I wonder what I might see that would fascinate me next time if I were to redo that walk.
PS sorry for late response not sure what happened to my notifications.
@PaulPavlinovich@IrrPavlova Yes I can second Paul’s comments about food and galleries in Melbourne alleys. The alleys of Melbourne have seen their fair share of gentrification of late.
Doors, fire escapes, all sorts of things, I love a good door that you can try and guess where it might go. Narnia perhaps.
On a social network from the distant past in a galaxy far far away I had a hashtag called #burbanwalls which people shared their images of cool walls (which may have doors and windows, or not) from around the world. It was good while it lasted @MariaNgo
