There are five artworks that are lit up after dark from 5pm each evening from the 24th January to the 2nd February 2020 at the Bullring. For the second year running. This time coinciding with Chinese New Year. Talk to the Skies in St Martin's Square. Up St Martin's Walk With Love, Neon Angel Wings and Pulse. And in Rotunda Square is Birds that Fly Around with You.

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Festival of Light at the Bullring, from St Martin's Square to Rotunda Square


Festival of Light at the Bullring, from St Martin's Square to Rotunda Square


There are five artworks that are lit up after dark from 5pm each evening from the 24th January to the 2nd February 2020 at the Bullring. For the second year running. This time coinciding with Chinese New Year. Talk to the Skies in St Martin's Square. Up St Martin's Walk With Love, Neon Angel Wings and Pulse. And in Rotunda Square is Birds that Fly Around with You.


Another Brumtography meet with Karl Newton and one other member of this Facebook group. It had been raining on and off in the afternoon, so wasn't many of us.

Talk to the Skies - St Martin's Square

Shortly after 5pm on Sunday 26th January 2020, a look at Talk to the Skies by ITHACA Studio. Red, blue and green colours go across the bulbs on the ground. While pink, blue or green on the tube where beams of blue light shoot out into the sky. Selfridges seen behind. Wasn't quite dark enough at this point.

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The view from the balcony near Selfridges. This was by 5:50pm. On the right was With Love, the throbing red heart that plays music. More on that further down this post.

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From the area behind Chaophraya Thai Restaurant looking to the left, as the beams of blue light shoots into the sky to the left of the spire of St Martin in the Bullring.

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Back to the Selfridges balcony area, sometime after 6pm. The colours keep chaging down there, and the heart keeps beating.

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The beams of light goes so high above the spire of St Martin in the Bullring. It is best to see from up here, although you can check it out from St Martin's Square.

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With Love - St Martin's Walk

They didn't get the red heart inflated until about 5:30pm on the evening we went. Seen here from down Pulse on St Martin's Walk. With Neon Angel Wings below. It was designed by Franck Pelletier. You can hear a beating heart sound effect and they had music playing, which you could change if you pressed a button.

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Tried to get some views of the With Love red heart with the statue of Horatio Nelson. Which has been at the Bullring since 1809 (sculpted by Sir Richard Westmacott), some 4 years after Nelson died at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Meaning this statue is older than Nelson's Column in London!

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There was also a view of the heat with Selfridges, which was lit up orange. I missed seeing it in red for Chinese New Year. I think they should have left the lights red all weekend and not turn it back to orange.

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Where the heart is was where the Snow Dome was until the end of the Christmas season.

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This view lining the heart up with the Talk to the Skies blue beams and the spire of St Martin in the Bullring. This was one of my Creative Effect photos (trying out different settings).

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Neon Angel Wings - St Martin's Walk

Seen down the semi circle tube called Pulse is the Neon Angel Wings by Carla O'Brien. Visitors can pose for selfies with the pair of wings. From this side a bit difficult to get a clear shot without anyone in the way of them.

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A bit further down Pulse towards Neon Angel Wings.  The wings to the left was near the East Mall while the wings to the right was by the West Mall.

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Managed to get a clear view of the wings from the back on St Martin's Walk, looking up towards the Rotunda.

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A close up look at one of the set of wings with Pulse seen behind.

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From the other side. I think the Bullring malls were closed by 6pm, although it seemed like they had closed earlier than that (due to Sunday trading laws). I'm not sure if the restaurants were still open by then.

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Pulse - St Martin's Walk

This semi circle tube of lights is on St Martin's Walk and is by This is Loop. The lights have different patterns. The show lasts 5 minutes, and repeats every 20 minutes.

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From the top of St Martin's Walk looking down to the spire of St Martin in the Bullring. A Chinese lady had a facemask on, although that's probably common with Chinese people in this country (and nothing to do with that virus outbreak).

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Caught this cyclist heading through the tunnel down St Martin's Walk.

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Added a star filter on my camera (which is in one of my cameras Creative effects).

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One last look at Pulse, up towards Rotunda Square.

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Birds that Fly Around with You - Rotunda Square

At first they were having problems turning the lights on for this Birds feature in Rotunda Square. As you can see it is loads of birds in a circle. By 5:25pm they still were unable to turn it on. It is by Masochism Shimada.

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Got several photos up here, before heading down St Martin's Walk and checking out the other light displays at the Bullring.

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Later we popped back up St Martin's Walk to check if they were able to turn it on. After 6pm they had managed to get it working. If someone walks around the centre, the lights on the birds follows them around in a anti clockwise direction.

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This view of the birds with the Rotunda (I have still not been up).

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One more view of the light on the birds going around in circles.

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We spent well over an hour going up and down checking out the Festival of Light features. It was good but very cold. And worth seeing as I missed seeing the 2019 Festival of Light after dark (I only saw it in the daylight hours). So this made up for it.

 

Photos taken by Elliott Brown.

Follow me on Twitter here ellrbrown.

Birmingham We Are People with Passion award winner 2020