An abandoned house in Oliveira do Bairro, 2 December 2021

This house opposite the post office in Oliveira has been abandoned for decades. On the front someone has stencilled, ‘they have guns, but we have flowers,’ a reference to the 1974 carnation revolution in Portugal that overthrew the fascist government.

Street photography in Oiã, 21 November 2021

Sunday morning in Oiã, and the streets are deserted.

A Day out in Coimbra, 15 November 2021

Off to Coimbra by train. Always a great way to travel.

More playing with pano, from 12 November 2021

I took some of the raw photos from yesterday’s panoramas and put them through a stitching program called Image Composite Editor (ICE). They look much better, but of course you’ll need to turn you phone on its side to see them in their full glory.

Playing with pano, 12 November 2021

As versatile as the Pocket 2 is, I seem to be captivated with taking panoramas with it at the moment. Today we headed to the coastal town of Barra, near Aveiro.

Street Art in Barra, 12 November 2021

Barra is undergoing a lot of development at the moment, but alongside the new buildings there is always street art from the past. 

Playing with pano, 27 October 2021

Took the Pocket 2 out for a spin in Aveiro, concentrating on panoramas of this beautiful city and its canals.

Aveiro: The Car Park, 27 October 2021

Driving into Aveiro the main road leads past the salt flats on the left and the nightclub Sal on the right. Turning right towards the city centre, on the immediate right is a small car park built (if that is the right word) on the remains of several demolished houses. Actually, I was never sure

Aveiro: The Underpass, 27 October 2021

Alongside the canal that forms the central attraction of Aveiro is a path that leads to what was Club 8, the go-to nightclub in the city. Now long gone, it’s a nightclub called ‘Sal’ (salt, Aveiro’s premier export) and the buildings around have been largely demolished. The path to Sal leads under the main road

Aveiro: The Overpass, 27 October 2021

Headed off along the railway line today. As well as a lot of commissioned street art, there is also a lot of graffiti to be found on the bridges and a nearby overpass. 

Actors of Urban Change, 27 October 2021

Several years ago, the city of Aveiro initiated Vivacidade, ‘Dressing-Up the City Voids’. The aim was to enable the local community to transform abandoned spaces into useful places. Actors of Urban Change was the team who coordinated and promoted the project’s objectives. This old stencilled wall looks like it’s an advertising hoarding for the campaign,

Artwork by Zooter, 27 October 2021

Tucked away near the park with the sculpture by Luis Queimadela is a small piece by the Portuguese artist Dalila Montero, known as ‘Zooter’. Zooter has been commissioned for various street art projects around Aveiro, and I’m not sure whether this is part of one of these commissions or if this is a personal piece.

Abandoned in Águas Boas, 26 October 2021

There’s a house in Águas Boas that has been abandoned for nigh on twenty years. Derelict on the inside, outside it has a unique hand-made wooden door that just screams, ‘restore me!’

Lost Art: The destruction of urban graffiti

It is a given that graffiti and street art is often a transient artform; existing works may be painted over by either the owners of the structure on which the artwork is found, removed (if it is from a well-known artist such as Banksy, or just painted over by another street/graffiti artist. However, as often

Aveiro: The Metal Fence, 13 October 2021

Wherever someone has created a barrier or left a bare wall, graffiti artists or taggers have covered it. Many years ago the building behind this fence was demolished,  and the owners erected a metal fence before the land was redeveloped. However, nothing was ever done and the fence, tagged long ago by some forgotten artist,

Estação de Aveiro, 13 October 2021

Trains have long been a target for tagging, and the station is no exception.

Aveiro: The Alley, 13 October 2021

In the centre of the city there’s an alley that used to be lined with derelict buildings. On one side was a wall of street art from a long-forgotten festival, while on the other the buildings were being renovated. I imagined that since then the art was long gone. But no, it seems to have

Aveiro: The Underpass, 13 October 2021

The road to the Yacht Club passes under the A25, the main road that runs from the coast at Barra all the way to Spain. Underneath the road, an area has been paved over as a car park. Inevitably graffiti artists have left their mark.

Aveiro: The Yacht Club, 13 October 2021

Just outside the city, the Aveiro Yacht Club is a dockyard and marina for boats from Aveiro and beyond. Once a bustling area, the land around the Club is now largely derelict and has become a haven for graffiti artists.

Stencil Street Art in Aveiro, 13 October 2021

Political street art is common in Aveiro, whether these are vintage works from before the turn of the twenty-first century or modern messages about voting in the last general election. It is quite popular in recent years for activists from political parties to prepare stencils of their message and spray these on walls around the