Over the weekend I took great advantage of the good weather to head to Birmingham to Digbeth. An area that I simply love for all its street art and the buildings. Its been way over a year since I was in the area and I have idea’s for what I wanted to do while I was there but things didn’t quite go to plan for a few reasons.
HS2 have dumped a lot of stuff around the area that just doesn’t make for great video.
Lots of events / gigs happening during the day so quite a lot of people around and as the day got later more people arrived in the area.
I have never flown in such a built up area before so this was a bit of a first. Winds are quite unpredictable due to the updraft from the buildings / road and the heat so that was a new one to me.
It was quite an enjoyable experience be it a bit nerve racking at times but no one was fussed about me flying the Mini 3 Pro. I plan to go back again, but midweek I think and on my own so I don’t need to stress about the better half being entertained while I spend ages trying to get the shot.
A lot of these artists are sponsored as the cost of paint is just crazy. These big pieces cost 100’s up into the 1000’s when they start to higher cherry pickers etc too.
Also a fair few of them do this commercially too to help cover costs.
It’s just a shame that there are true vandals who destroy the true art that these guys do with mindless tags.
There is some amazing street art in digbeth, very interesting. There are crushed cars in cubes that make the entrance to a car park (wonder if the cars were people who did not pay). Digbeth is quite interesing.
That’s where I parked. They also have a fab wall with spiderman on it but it forms part of some arena / venue so when I headed back to film it and get some shots of my Jimny with it there were just too many people
Went back to Digbeth on Saturday - wow it was warm and quite windy again due to the heat.
Never trust weather apps as it was suppose to be a dry day - got caught in a few quite hard downpores.
Some Pano’s from the day
The old disused overgrown railway was a nice find.
Video coming soon - glad I had already been and seen what was around to have a better idea of where to start flying so as to stay away from people and not feel so rushed.
it was almost a slight mistake - I wanted to get the trains on the train line but walked over to the wrong bridge and when I turned round I noticed that it was the other bridge that had the trains running - so google maps showed me that it was an old abandoned one so that was quite cool - nature will always win !
Went back to Digbeth again last weekend to get some more footage and spend a bit more time in the area, now I knew the layout of the land with the HS2 works going on and the event spaces around the area.
Got a LOT of footage - so here is around 8 and a half mins of the nearly half hours worth of footage I got.
New video of Digbeth is out - its is 8 and a half mins long though - eeek but so much to show and see
I have long wanted to see Birmingham from atop that railway viaduct so thanks for the glimpse. It’s not a ‘disused’ viaduct - the Duddeston Viaduct is entirely unused. It was built slightly short of its destination and never had tracks laid on it.
See these links for it’s history:
I can’t confirm it, but I was long under the impression that the builders knew their project was doomed.
They carried on building a folly motivated by engineering pride. I hope it’s true.
