LEOMINSTER photographer and website designer Christopher Preece compiled an online photography gallery to tie in with architecture week (June 17-26) completely off his own bat.

The motivation for developing the site, which reveals 100 buildings of modern and postmodern interest, is to showcase well-known, but often unappreciated, architectural splendours of British towns and cities.

Christopher, aged 43, who has lived in the Leominster area all his life, has been photographing buildings for over 25 years.

His interest in 20th and 21st century architecture has led him to seek out buildings of interest.

Wife Hilary is a martyr to his passion, and is quite used to their holidays being planned around trips to see buildings.

The opening of Hereford Courtyard, a building documented on the site and which Christopher describes as 'absolutely wonderful' and a 'fantastic opportunity for Herefordshire', was of particular excitement.

"It's a shame we don't celebrate buildings like the Courtyard, which is modern, contemporary, useful and multipurpose," he said.

Other local buildings featured on the site include the John Venn building in Hereford (recently renamed the John Haider building) and the old Clifton cinema in Leominster.

"Some people will hate them," Christopher said, who is aware that some of his subjects are political hot potatoes.

"A building like Tate St Ives is not so dissimilar to the cinema in Leominster.

"Both have beautiful curves and share a 1930s modernist look.

"If only people would look up, they'd see the synergy between them."

He trained as a structural engineer, from where an interest in buildings developed.

Interested in photography since a teenager, he took an evening course at Herefordshire College of Art and Design.

Although his photography work is mainly digital these days, the images on the site are mainly black and white and hand-processed.

The images are brought together with no particular theme other than a joy in the form, texture, contrast and shape that modern buildings provide for a photographer.

Often photographed from an unusual viewpoint, the images demonstrate how buildings that are part of our everyday landscape are often missed, forgotten and worst still, destroyed.

Visit the site at www.imagesofbuildings.com and register your feedback.

Although not for sale, Christopher's hope is to one day have his collection published in a book.