Welcome to the Website of Alan Burnett: writer, blogger, collector of old photographs, and devotee of all things pointless and inconsequential.
A Heated Basin
We are living through record heatwaves here in the UK at the moment, experiencing temperatures that make you want to find a cool stretch of water and take the plunge. I took today’s photograph in Brighouse Canal Basin well over half a century ago, when it was surrounded by gasworks and endless, rundown factories. You would have been risking your life by going for a swim in the canal back in those days, and even now you’d be better advised to put…
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A 1907 Poke
A “Facebook Poke” is defined as “a digital nudge or virtual greeting used to get a friend’s attention.” The equivalent 120 years ago was a postcard – sent, as it happens, to…
The Swinging Sixties
The summers of my youth, when the most avant-garde experience might have been listening to a trad-jazz combo in the park. And if the sun was shining, they might even hang their…
Bridge Art
There should be a special category of art for the work displayed on the metal panels that line endless railway bridges and other lumps of transport infrastructure in this country.…
Shibden Gate
There is always a temptation to submit images that don’t pass the pinpoint definition test – or that fail short of the standard for clarity and contrast – to some…
Tired Pinks And Sooty Greens
The view looking back up the Calder Valley from the top of Long Wall, Elland provides all the sensuous curves demanded by even the most obsessive nineteenth century French Impressionist.…
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