I remember learning in my school geography lessons that in Britain poorer housing and industry is often located on the east side of a city and better housing on the west. This is apparently due to the prevailing wind being a westerly or south westerly. The well-heeled preferred not to have noxious odours brought to them on the breeze and so, in the main, they chose the western side of the city in which to live. The poor had less choice or no choice at all.
I recall thinking that this seemed to apply to London in so far as I knew it; that the West End was upmarket compared with the downmarket East End. When I moved, several years later, to the city of Kingston upon Hull, the rule applied there too, though it was somewhat spoiled by the fact that the fish dock was in the west of the city.
On my first visit to Boston I noticed this sign on top of a cinema. Roof mounted signs are much less common in Britain than they are in other countries so they do catch my eye. Could the same rule apply in this town I wondered? Was this a West End in the London sense though on a smaller scale? The answer in both cases proved to be no. The sign seems to take its inspiration from London and the fact that the West End has many cinemas, but also leans on the fact it is located in a road called West Street. The clear January light was emphasising the sharp shapes when I looked up at it the other day so I photographed it against the cloud flecked sky in a very off-centre composition.
photograph and text © Tony Boughen
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17.8mm (48mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: - 0.3EV
Image Stabilisation: On
