NCPphoto | Car Park | Photographer

Photographer Phil Burrowes | NCPphoto project | The Beauty of Car Parks

It was a huge challenge. I mean, these were car parks! Grey, miserable, dull, boring, stinking, municipal buildings constructed for a purpose. What could I do with them?

But, when you think about it differently, the scale of these things, the design it takes, they are Cathedrals to cars and modern dependence on the personal vehicle. The portal from which we emerge to satisfy our internal consumer. all pretty negative connotations.

National Car Parks Photography Project – The Beauty of Car Parks

I can remember visiting multi storey car parks as a kid, making my dad drive to the top to park on the roof, to zoom down the spiralling exit ramps, to hear the tires squeal as you went around looking for a space.

I wanted to evoke that feeling in my photography. I also had a little desire to show secret places? I liked the idea of challenging the perceptions of car parks, and to make people take another, more considered view of the world around them, to see beauty where they wouldn’t expect to find it. 

Plus, I was intrigued by the strong shapes, to incorporate the lines in the structure within my photography. To use them as compositional aides. I wanted to show people what they were missing all around them when using a car park.

What was the NCPphoto project for?

NCP had some stock images of their portfolio of buildings, as well as some architect’s renders, but these were so dull. Trying to show a utopia of bright, breezy people smiling, gurning and wafting through a town centre with the car park in the background. It was trying too hard. The #NCPphoto project would create art from the existing buildings, as they were. 

I did a test shoot, at a run down, under funded, water damaged car park. That’s what really got me excited. I realised that through the lens, there really was a beauty in these behemoths of architecture. Not just in the overall scale of them, but also at a micro level, seeing details in smaller areas of the buildings. 

How was the NCPphoto project photographed?

I had committed myself to taking night shots at many of the sites. This meant shooting in darkness, with a good £4-5k worth of photography gear, in Stockport, central Birmingham and Manchester, at night, with the associated reprobates, hanging around in dark corners of the car parks.

I also had to photograph Birmingham City Airport. I knew for one of the shots I would be on the top of the car park, with a 200mm lens, on a tripod, with a real risk of being shot by anti-terrorist police. (the police were informed, but I had committed myself to taking night shots at many of the sites. This meant shooting in darkness, with a good £4-5k worth of photography gear, in Stockport, central Birmingham and Manchester, at night, with the associated reprobates, hanging around in dark corners of the car parks.

On a more professional level, I knew I wanted to show a variety in the images produced. Using natural/available light, to produce images at dawn, during the day and at night. I mean, these buildings are lit most of the time with a variety of sources, I knew I could create exciting and dramatic images of them. 

The Beauty of Car Parks on The BBC

View the project and reactions on the BBC website – September 2021

How could your business benefit from a similar project?