"Boulevard of Broken Dreams"

Posted by Ian Bramham (Manchester, United Kingdom) on 23 September 2007 in Abstract & Conceptual and Portfolio.

Do'nt you just love digital photography! - I was messing about in photoshop with this night shot that I took in the city a few months ago and tried a rather extreme b&w conversion of it, destroying any image quality in the process but leaving me with something that I found really interesting.

All of a sudden, quite unbidden on my part, those iconic images by Roy Schatt and Dennis Stock from the 50's of James Dean walking in New York City popped into my head.
http://www.hackelbury.co.uk/artists/stock/stock_pic06.html
http://www.jamesdean.com/about/photos/walking.htm
The title "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" came from an obscure link to Dean - so obscure that I won't bore you with it now, but I thought it suited the image.

There are also several songs by the same name but the lyrics to this version by Green Day are particularly beautiful. I'm not really a fan of theirs but Armstrong sure knows how to write :

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone

Read between the lines
What's fucked up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone...

Lyrics by Green Day

For purchasing high quality archival prints of any of these photos you can send me an email by clicking here or by going to MY NEW WEBSITE where prices are listed in the gallery sections under each individual photo.
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Links to the websites of other photographers whose work I love and who have all helped me enormously over a long period of time. I find the work of all 3 to be inspirational.

Hugo Poon
John Leech
Ian Smith

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