Andy McDonald Black and White Photos

  This is a project that has taken around a year to complete, over a number of short breaks in Glasgow to visit our daughter. The picture above shows a scaled mock-up of how this collection will look as a set of mounted prints, which I plan to create over the coming weeks. The project started with the picture of Bells Bridge in the centre of the bottom row, which is also one of the first pictures I took with the Laowa 15mm f/4.5 Shift lens, before gradually extending to cover the area from Govan in the West to Tradeston in the East. I find urban regeneration to be a fascinating subject, but especially as shown in this area of Glasgow (with all five bridges included here being constructed since 1988). As part of this project, I chose to include wider views of the urban landscape in addition to the more usual architectural studies that I have favoured in the past.  You can view the complete collection of 21 images in the dedicated "Clyde Renaissance" gallery at my website .

The Building Designed by Zaha Hadid Architects and opened in 2011, this purpose built museum sits at the confluence of the River Kelvin and the Clyde. It is a sectional extrusion open at both ends, its outline encapsulating a wave or pleat, flows from the city to waterfront, symbolizing the dynamic relationship between Glasgow and the ship-building, seafaring and industrial legacy of the river Clyde. Clear glass facades allow light to flood through the main exhibition space. The Riverside Museum won the 2013 European Museum of the Year award. The Photograph The regeneration of the docks along the Clyde has resulted in some very impressive architecture, which I have been gradually featuring here on my website. We took the Subway from the city centre to Govan and crossed the Clyde via the newly opened Govan-Partick bridge (which will likely feature here at some point). The part of the museum facing the Clyde was obscured by building work when we visited, so I made sure that we took the t...

The Building The Advanced Research Centre (ARC) building is one of the many standout buildings on the University of Glasgow campus in the West End of the city. The building opened in 2022 and was designed by HOK Architects. HOK’s design expresses the research activities taking place inside the ARC while drawing inspiration from the University’s existing campus and masterplan and Glasgow’s historic buildings. The Photograph This is a building that I have photographed on all of the trips that I have made to Glasgow since the initial open day visit in June 2023. It is a very large building with lots of interesting shapes, which actually makes it quite difficult to capture. Both of the pictures I have (so far) published have been abstracts, concentrating on smaller parts of the building.  For this one, I was struck by the walkway with its sweeping curves and how the light hits the exterior.  This is a panoramic photograph made up of two images shot on the Laowa 15mm f/4.5 Shi...

  The Building Designed by BDP Architects and opened in 2001, winning RIBA Award for Architecture 2002, Glasgow Institute of Architects Design Award 2001, Bentley Success Award 2003, Dynamic Place Award 2002 the overall Glasgow Science Centre scheme was the largest Millennium Commission-funded project in Scotland. This is the Mall, the largest of the three main titanium-clad buildings.   The Photograph Modern architecture tends to feature glass quite heavily. This example is no exception. I have developed a few different approaches to rendering the glass in images, sometimes I abstract the glass completely as it if is a solid surface and other times I use gradients to darken the glass to partially obscure what is behind it. In both approaches you end up treating the nearest glass wall as pretty much a solid wall.  Reviewing my pictures from this trip, I initially discounted this image because it seemed too simple a shape - due to my normal approaches to the glass wal...

  The Building Designed by Building Design Partnership and opened in 2001 as part of the Science centre. The building is clad in Titanium, one of the first Titanium clad buildings in Britain, as well as being the first IMAX cinema in Scotland.  The Photograph Although I have only processed this picture this week, I took this back in October during a short trip to Glasgow. Staying in the city centre, we took a short-ish Subway trip out to Govan and then had a pleasant walk to the Science Centre at Pacific Quay. The main building is impressive, but the IMAX particularly caught my eye due to its barrel-like shape and Titanium cladding. This picture is a single image taken with a Laowa 15mm f/4.5 Shift lens on a Sony A7RII. See more of my pictures at my Gallery