I love the spontaneous appearance of Birthday Banners on roundabouts or hanging from railings, the fact that someone has sacrificed a sheet from the airing cupboard, spent hours cutting out letters or photocopying embarrassing baby photos. Then they risk their life by crossing main roads and clambering onto roundabouts or wherever to bang in posts, string to trees or some other creative solution so that their intended victim will see their work of art on their morning or evening commute. There’s one particular roundabout I pass quite often and it’s a very popular location, I enjoy seeing how long the banners last for, sometimes they vanish without a trace, sometimes they become sad and faded or just droop forlornly while some are even reused with names being crossed out or patches being stuck over the original name with another. Birthday Banners are not easy to photograph, the first hurdle is seeing the banner in good time to stop the car – duel carriageways are almost impossible, smaller roads are best and once I’ve abandoned the car I have to get to the banner itself and sometimes the act of crossing the roads to get to the right side are life endangering, often I have to contend with sarcastic comments being yelled at me from opened car and van windows. If I happen to have my ‘proper’ camera and zoom lens with me, I’m pretty much guaranteed a decent photo, but often I’ll only have my happy snappy or even worse, my iPhone, so often these are not good photographs, but I just can’t drive past a birthday banner without having a go.
