Milton Keynes at dusk, through rain spattered glass; doesn’t sound like a particularly appealing subject for a series of photographs does it? I had this thought in mind when I went to see Slow Glass, an exhibition of photographs by Naoya Hatakeyama at the NGCA. Rather than being disappointed at the dull subject matter coupled with the dangerously cheezy technique of photographing through rainy windows, I was in awe while looking at these photographs. Behind a multitude of water droplets, blurred views of Milton Keynes can be seen; street lamps, the multiplex cinema, traffic lights are all the ingredients of a typical new-town where people spend their time navigating round-a-bouts in their cars if they aren’t in their homes. When looking at these photographs, you find yourself being drawn closer; you notice that the water droplets are acting as tiny lenses, bending the light from the scene behind into perfect focus. The result is a series of photographs made up of thousands of tiny images, scattered chaotically over the surface. The exhibition is on at the NGCA in Sunderland until the 28th of March and can be seen in Winchester and York later in the spring.